I St 


|2£ 


it 


; ■ i 








r 


J 4. 


J? 




. 




1 l 




K 








i U 






m 


13 


ii* j. 


uynJii 


: i M 


a 


in 


u 


H 


II 


!>./* 


► JJ 




M 


m 


* a . t* i 4 


80 ! 


(lit: 


1511 


a 




!S 


il 




nil 


?! 


t 


11 


iU: 




all: 






!iWl 


. t 


M: 




\in 




IWI! U*C.UCt3l 


\vy,\ 


II 


il 


an' j 




ill 


/: t 


« i * • * • 






i 






1 l U ■ 


K4Ki 


iit; 


in; 


9?l9l?4H 


It 


■ iCt 






H 






3>! 


1 H 








M 


■ 


(S’ 


m 




• ' 


1 1 1 




ii 


1 } C'i 


IJ4* 


U3i 


1 i 


iv*; 






M 


< 7 1 4: 


I 




<1 


. ; l > 












■ 


1 






it 




I f II I M ® 

{ j i‘ jj j : ‘i t t ! i i j | it ? urn h^iji | MiMii i f asill I # i 

ii JJivJi HaiiH ’1 •; PH' llil J r ! i1'] Ml- ! -p J '!«!{] IjI j! >41: Hjjii jlif J 

> H i: < 51 . * ;• hi ! 11 ih Is; im >; m »?• Ml v>i> lull hill lifhfr Jt«U S ?i5(i Jr it tub 


f 


HI 


} it 


m|RJ 

Ih ii 


I i f ii s i hp s mm 

n i t f fU ; h] I h in | 

(I j; I m i Hi r IW iliM 


il 












ii 


mmm 


mlsal 


i • 




A * 




m 


* 


i**n 

m 


I is 




t* 


ra 


\*U 


m 


13*1 






m 


3: 




t 


411 


i 


ii 




!!? i 


1 :> 


i 


:i 


tel Urn 

ul u- h\\ !. 


i 


*k 


*! 




n 




! 


lieu: 




■ ■ 






woe*: 




l SH 


iKi: 










85H 


HI 


«» 1 


YitlJ 


\w 


' 


1} 


i; 






.;a 


















Class. ' . 

Book-,. A : h a 
GopyiightN 0 - ~p A 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 









I 




















The other Italian sprang to guard the door. 

page 180 



Philip Derby, Reporter 


BY 

WILLIS J. ABBOT 

Author of “The Story of Our Navy for Young Americans,’* 
“Blue Jackets of 1918,” etc. 

‘ WITH FRONTISPIECE ’ 



NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
1922 



Copyright, 1922 , 

By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Ino. 



PRINTED IN U. S. A. 

VAIL- BALLOU COMPANY 

■IMQHAMTON AND NEW TOAK 


SEP 26 


•no 

l.L. 


j V 




©CI.A683387 




INTRODUCTION 


The story of u Philip Derby, Reporter” is 
very largely founded on fact. It has a purpose 
other than one of mere entertainment, and in- 
termingled with the fiction the reader will find 
an outline of methods in vogue in a modern 
newspaper office. It has been my endeavor 
to draw a picture of the conditions that con- 
front the young man who seeks a foothold in 
journalism in almost any large city. New York 
is perhaps the most difficult point for the be- 
ginner to get a start, because to New York 
from all over the country flock ambitious news- 
paper men, eager for the prizes which are al- 
ways to be found in the great city. But the 
conditions which obtain in a New York office ex- 
ist in those of the cities of the interior. 

It is a great question among the older jour- 
nalists who are quitting the stage as to whether 
their successors are going to be as they were, 
graduates merely of the reportorial staff or if 
they are going to come into the profession with 
a liberal education obtained in schools of jour- 
nalism. Most of the editors who were eminent 
toward the end of the nineteenth century were 


INTRODUCTION 


men who had reached the editorial rooms by 
way of the composing room. They knew how 
to stick type, and in many cases had led the 
somewhat romantic life of the “tramp” printer, 
a now vanished figure in American industry. 
They were scornful of mere college graduates, 
and knew nothing of graduates of schools of 
journalism, which are, indeed, of comparatively 
late establishment. Horace Greeley was per- 
haps the most eminent of the printer editors, 
and his comment, by which an aspiring appli- 
cant for place once was crushed, that he “would 
rather have any kind of horned cattle around 
a newspaper office than a college graduate.” 
is historic. 

Julius Chambers, who in the course of his 
life became the managing editor successively 
of the New York Herald , New York World and 
the Neiv York American, tells this story of the 
way in which one college graduate at least was 
met by Mr.Greeley: — 

“Entering the counting room, I handed a 
card containing my name to a clerk, with sub- 
lime confidence that Mr. Greely would see me. 
Reasons for that assurance will soon appear. 
A long wait followed, after which I was shown 
up a single flight of iron stairs to the editor's 
x den. An attendant, afterwards known to me 
as D. J, Sullivan, pointed to a burly, white- 


INTRODUCTION 


haired man in shirt sleeves, seated at a desk 
upon which was piled a mass of clippings, let- 
ters and ‘ copy/ After standing for many 
minutes unrecognized, I heard a shrill, squeaky 
voice ask: 

‘Well, young fellow, what is it?’ I looked 
about the room for another speaker than the 
idol of my boyhood; hut it was the voice of 
Horace Greeley — so harshly falsetto, so unsym- 
pathetic, that when the kindly face, round as 
the moon on her thirteenth night and with its 
aura of silken white hair, turned in my direc- 
tion, I barely managed to stammer : 

‘Mr. Greeley, I came to ask a place on your 
newspaper. You are a trustee of Cornell Uni- 
versity, and I have been graduated there — ’ 

‘I’d a damned sight rather you had gradu- 
ated at a printer’s case!’ was the outburst, as 
the editor swung back to his desk. He gave 
me no opportunity to say that I had been fore- 
man of a composing room and had taken my- 
self through college as a compositor. The 
great man forgot me then and there. Although 
I subsequently met him many times, he never 
identified me. ’ ’ 

But the printer editor has gone his, way., He 
was succeeded by the editor who had attained 
the higher stages of the profession through 
hard work as a reporter. Such a one is to-day 


INTRODUCTION 


the typical editor, and is perhaps as inclined 
to he scornful of the man who has never held a 
reporter’s job as his predecessor was intolerant 
of the man who did not know how to set type. 
But it seems not improbable that he, too, will 
vanish before the more progressive and better 
trained type of journalist who will have the 
foundation given by a college course, topped off 
with the work of a school of journalism. 

These* schools are multiplying throughout the 
United States. The oldest one was established 
at the University of Missouri in 1907. Aspir- 
ants to newspaper work will find in the bulle- 
tins published by that school many helpful 
hints which may be well worth attending. 
Particularly the pamphlet called “ A News- 
paper Man’s Library,” being Number 22 of the 
Journalism Series issued by the University 
of Missouri, is well worth getting and reading. 

The hero of this story never saw a school of 
journalism. He was bred in the hard school 
of reportorial experience. The success that 
in imagination has been made to attend his pa- 
tient waiting and earnest efforts may very well 
encourage youths, who, like him, rejoice in the 
smell of the printer’s ink, the rattle of the 
presses, and hope in time to be able to conduct 
a city staff of their own. 


Willis J. Abbot 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I The Black Hand ....... 1 

II The Vanished Reporter 12 

III How Reporters “Catch On” . . . 28 

IV A Clue in the Night 41 

V In Little Italy 56 

VI The Newspaper Council of War . . 73 

VII Threading a Maze 85 

VIII On a Sharp Scent 102 

IX On the Trail of Pietro 120 

X A Police Detective Helps 133 

XI A Reporter’s Education 151 

XII The Enemy Weakens 166 

XIII Hunted Down 179 

XIV An Undesired Aid 195 

XV Untangling the Skein 202 



PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 


CHAPTER I 

THE BLACK HAND 

In a big, bare room well filled with men 
working swiftly and silently over great sheaves 
of typewritten paper under glaring electric 
lights shielded by green shades, a telephone 
bell rang sharply. Attention was instant. 
Clearly it was a place where things were done 
in a rush, where men “came a running” as 
they say in the navy. 

The man who eagerly seized the receiver was 
young in years but with a look of wisdom which 
only deep experience, lacking age, could have 
conferred. A disreputable straw hat of the 
vintage of ten years before was perched on his 
head though the season was midwinter. 
“Bill” Bowers, city editor of The Blade , and 
his straw hat were objects inseparable in the 
journalistic mind of that day. When “on the 
job” the hat was on his head. When enjoying 
— or suffering — his brief and infrequent hours 
off the hat lay directly under the roll top of his 
desk, ready for donning as the first official act 


2 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

of his night’s work. Admiring reporters, usu- 
ally new to the calling, regarded it with some- 
thing of the awe with which the soldier of the 
Empire looked upon the cocked hat and gray 
surtout of the “ Little Corporal.” It was a 
symbol of battle and of victory. When older 
in the business the reporter professed to be 
able to tell from the very tilt of that aged, but 
not venerable, straw whether or not it would 
be safe to make a “ touch” for an order on the 
business office for advance salary. 

Just now the hat was coming in for one of 
its bad moments. With one hand holding the 
telephone receiver close to his ear, the city edi- 
tor rolled and crumpled, with the other, the 
already shapeless brim until it creaked and 
crackled in his grasp. At the same time his 
gaze swept the great dark room in search of 
something it apparently could not discover. 

“Jimmie, there isn’t a reporter in the shop,” 
he said through the phone in one of those low, 
carrying voices that tell of much experience in 
talking over the wire. “You’ll have to handle 
that story by yourself. Yes I know that 
you’ve got to follow the trail over to the At- 
lantic docks and it’s late. Here’s what we’ll 
do. You write out the story as far as you’ve 
got it. Give all names and facts you can get, 
seal it up and leave it with the fellow who runs 


THE BLACK HAND 


3 


the big garage on the corner right across from 
where you are now. What’s that? Oh, yes. 
I know the neighborhood, know ’em all. 
That’s my trade. Now listen. You want to 
look out for that garage fellow. He’s a wop 
like the man we are hunting. May be mixed 
up in this affair himself. But you hire a tour- 
ing car from him and tell him you’ll need it 
most of the night. I guess that will hold him, 
and he’ll keep the copy for us all right. I’ll 
send a boy for it right away. Then you put 
for the Atlantic docks across the Queensboro 
Bridge and down through Brooklyn. You 
ought to get there about the time the first batch 
of copy gets here. You can phone from the 
dock if our man is on the ship. It will be too 
late to write anything. This is some story, 
remember. Telephone me from the dock, and 
be ready to go on with the story in the morning 
without coming to the office. Rush it, old 
man ! ’ ’ 

With a click the telephone receiver was hung 
up and the city editor turned to make a more 
careful survey of the room and its few remain- 
ing tenants. 

The hour was approaching midnight. A 
dull steady rumble rising from below told that 
the first section of the paper containing 
advertisements, markets and early news was 


4 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

already on the presses. Many of the staff had 
gone home, and the big bare factory-like loft 
was only lighted here and there where some 
late workers were grinding out their “stuff.” 
The room was colossal in size, so that the 
brilliant lights glowing above the horse-shoe 
shaped table at which now sat a dozen men 
silently and absorbedly working over piles of 
type-written manuscript, failed to carry light 
to the further corners. Here and there a 
glowing bulb in a green shade hung over a type- 
writer at which a man in shirt-sleeves was 
pounding out words at so fierce a rate that it 
seemed impossible he could be writing read- 
able English. In distant corners of the gloom 
were little centers of light and activity. In 
one spot half a dozen men were bending over 
boards covered with white paper so that the 
gleaming light above threw their heads into 
bold relief. These were the newspaper artists 
diligently working up photographs, or sketch- 
ing out maps for some story in the morning’s 
issue. At another point a partition shut off 
a bank of loudly ticking machines which were 
automatically printing the Associated Press 
report on long slips of paper which from time 
to time a copy boy cut off and carried to the 
impatient editors. Bits of bright color, and 
the gleam of a man’s white shirt front, told 


THE BLACK HAND 


5 


of the location of the society department to 
which reporters were briskly bringing the 
stories of the social doings of the night, while 
cheek by jowl the sporting editor was holding 
solemn converse with a brace of pugilists 
arranging the details of a prize fight. 

From the big central table near the city 
editor’s desk pneumatic tubes extended across 
the room and cut though the ceiling. 

Now and then the sharp thud of a metal 
carrier dropping into a trough where a watch- 
ful boy stood waiting told of the arrival of 
proofs from the composing room above where 
scores of men sat before linotype keyboards 
making molten metal spout into moulds, that 
the thoughts of the writers below might be cast 
into type and printed upon scores of miles of 
paper for the information, instruction, or 
amusement of millions of people. 

Off to one side, in a railed enclosure, scores 
of telegraph instruments were ticking away 
bringing to that spot the news of two hemi- 
spheres. The editor could talk thence to London 
or Shanghai at less cost in time than 75 years 
ago he could have talked with Washington. 

The newspaper of to-day is the incarnation 
of publicity. Instinctively it seems to spurn 
privacy of every kind. Time was when every 
dignitary enjoying the title of editor— -City 


6 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

Editor, Sporting Editor, Society Editor or 
Wall Street Editor — had a private room. 
Now-a-days the most up-to-date dailies house 
all their editorial staff in one great room. 
One highly prosperous paper, The Kansas City 
Star, used to boast that the proprietor him- 
self, a journalist of great ability, had his desk 
in the common room, his only privacy being 
such as a distance of forty feet or so to the 
desk of the nearest worker might assure. 

The desk of the city editor of the Blade 
overlooked the whole busy floor. With a 
shout he could call any one of half-a-hundred 
workers to his desk. But shouting was in bad 
form in that office. Swift, steady, systematic 
and silent work was the rule. Though obviously 
in haste Bowers now waited until the largest 
of the boys carrying copy was within earshot. 

“Oh, Derby,” he said quietly. 

The boy turned swiftly. He was about 
seventeen years old, tall and evidently athletic 
of habit, with a face that showed both thought 
and study. He had come to the paper as a 
copy boy because he had immediate need of 
earning his own living, and in the hope that he 
might ultimately get a chance as a reporter, 
and thus get his foot on the ladder to journal- 
istic success. Often enough he had been called 
to go on some errand of minor significance. 


THE BLACK HAND 


7 


He was sturdy and trustworthy — a “good pair 
of legs” as the reporters called him, but noth- 
ing hitherto had come of his ever willingness. 

‘ ‘ Go up to the corner of Avenue A and 163rd 
Street. You’ll find a garage there run by an 
Italian named Bertelli. Mr. Holbrook has left 
a wad of copy with him. You get it and hustle 
back in a hurry. Take the subway both ways 
and rush it, BUS[H IT.” 

He turned back to the pile of papers on his 
desk. Phil started for his hat and coat. His 
heart was heavy. Nothing but another leg job. 
Wouldn’t they ever give him a chance to show 
that he was something more than a willing 
errand boy? Here he was going to the other 
end of Manhattan to get the copy of a story of 
the nature of which he had been given not the 
slightest hint. If they would only give him a 
chance to go out and get a story himself. He 
felt abused, discontented, depressed. But he 
had hardly taken his coat from the locker when 
he heard the city editor’s voice calling him. 

“This may be a reporter’s job I’m sending 
you out on, Phil, ’ ’ his chief said as he came up 
to the desk. “You’d better know a little 
something about it, ’specially as I am leary of 
that garage fellow that’s holding Jimmie 
Holbrook’s copy for you. The place is right 
in New York’s up-town Little Italy, and we 


8 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

had a story — all the papers had it — that a 
fellow named Salvatore np there, a hanker, had 
disappeared. They’re always doing that, you 
know, these little neighborhood dago bankers. 
As soon as they get a good line of deposits from 
their fellow countrymen they put up the 
shutters and slip oft home to sunny Italy to 
enjoy life. But the curious thing about this 
fellow is that when the news of his disappear- 
ance got about and the usual run on the bank 
was started it appeared to be in perfectly good 
shape. He hadn’t milked the bank in any way, 
and his clerk has been paying depositors as fast 
as they come to the counter. If he has skipped 
he hasn’t taken any of the bank’s funds with 
him. 

“Now Jimmie who went up there just to 
write a human interest story about the 
hysterical women who had been beggared by 
the failure of the bank finds there isn’t any such 
story, for the concern’s O.K. But he ’s got it in 
his head there may be a Black Hand story in 
the affair, and has written some stuff which I 
want you to fetch while he runs down to the 
Atlantic basin where there’s an Italian ship 
sailing at midnight. So rush it, and keep your 
ears open up there for anything bearing on the 
story. Hustle now. ’ ’ 

Phil hustled. As he went running down the 


THE BLACK HAND 


9 


subway steps he reflected that it was not 
Bowers ’ custom to give such lengthy instruc- 
tions to a boy sent out after copy. Had his 
chance come at last? 

“Gee,” he ejaculated, “I don’t wish Jimmie 
Holbrook any harm but I wouldn’t mind if 
something happened so I could work up this 
story myself.” 

And the clangorous subway that swallowed 
him up at Brooklyn Bridge had cast him forth 
five miles to the north like Jonah from the 
whale’s belly before his mind stopped building 
air castles. 

He found Little Italy having one of its fre- 
quent religious fiestas. From the tall tenements 
on either side of the narrow streets hung gay 
strips of colored cloth while the streets them- 
selves were spanned by wires from which 
depended glittering elective lights. Smoky 
naptha torches blazed on the push-carts of the 
itinerant peddlers drawn up near the curb. 
Here and there urchins were burning red fire 
in the gutters, or setting off Roman candles. 
Up and down the sidewalks strolled the 
daughters of Sunny Italy in their gayest 
apparel. Mandolins and guitars and now and 
then the notes of a distant street piano made 
the night melodious according to the standards 
of the neighborhood. 


10 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

4 ‘If this is Little Italy,” thought Phil, 

4 4 wouldn’t I just like to see Naples?” 

The stage did not seem to be set for any sort 
of a melodrama, and Phil looked about him for 
the garage. There it was on the corner. It 
was the ordinary, commonplace sort of a cheap 
one-story edifice put together on a lot which 
some speculative owner was holding for a 
profit. Several men were lounging about the 
cavernous entrance where enticing signs 
offered 4 4 free air” to customers who speedily 
found out that everything else was far from 
free. Phil had little difficulty in picking out 
the proprietor, a smiling Italian whose almost 
theatrical air of authority proclaimed him 4 4 the 
Boss. ” At almost the first word he understood 
what Phil was after. 

4<i Si, si, si,” he cried, and rushing to his desk 
produced a large sealed envelope. 

4 4 Your friend he leave this. He say take 
to office. He hire my big car and go in hurry . 9 ’ 

4 4 Did he leave any message?” 

4 4 Non, non! Only he say hurry, hurry!” 

Phil thought vaguely that the man seemed 
rather in haste to get rid of him but the advice 
to hurry was proper enough. The night was 
wearing on and it was his duty to get the copy 
to the office in time for the first edition. So 
resisting an inclination to talk with the people 


THE BLACK HAND 


11 


of the neighborhood about the mystery he made 
for the subway. Half an hour later he stood 
at the city editor’s desk. 

“Got it?” growled that dignitary without 
looking up. “Holbrook hasn’t reported yet.” 

Phil dropped the envelope on his desk and 
turned away with a feeling that another chance 
had left him behind when he was arrested by 
a furious roar. 

“What the devil’s this?”' cried Bowers at the 
top of his lungs. He held out to Phil a sheaf 
of papers that he had just torn from the 
envelope. They were blank save that on one 
was roughly drawn a Black Hand. 


CHAPTER II 


THE VANISHED REPORTER 

The discovery that the copy boy had brought 
back only blank sheets of paper with what was 
seemingly a sinister threat, aroused excitement 
in the office which was almost instantly checked 
by the city editor. 

4 ‘ Looks queer,” he said. “ Maybe that dago 
garage keeper was just joshing you — maybe 
it’s something more serious. Anyway we y ll 
just keep quiet about this for a time. Don! 
any of you fellows say a word outside. You 
better stick around awhile, Derby. We Ve just 
time to get the first edition off now, and later 
we can see what to do : ” 

Thereupon Bowers disappeared into a closed 
room and busied himself with two telephones. 
In a few moments he had learned that the ship 
Garibaldi was just casting off, as it was after 
midnight, that no reporter for The Blade was 
on the dock so far as could be learned, and that 
the name of Salvatore did not appear on the 
passenger list, though that fact did not pre- 
clude the possibility of the banker's being 
aboard under an assumed name. 

12 


THE VANISHED REPORTER 13 


Not particularly surprised by this informa- 
tion Bowers called another number. It was 
that of Sidney Perkins, managing editor 
of the paper. 

In a metropolitan newspaper there are four 
editorial excutives in the news department 
who are, in the order of their rank, the man- 
aging editor, the city editor, the night city ed- 
itor and the night editor. The managing ed- 
itor is usually the responsible head of the en- 
tire news staff. He determines the expendi- 
tures to be made in each of the editorial de- 
partments, and allots to the city editor, the tel- 
egraph editor, the sporting editor and others 
the amount of money each may expend upon 
his department. In association with the busi- 
ness manager, who sends him daily a report on 
the volume of advertising on hand, he fixes the 
size of the paper which may vary from 12 to 
34 pages. 

If, as often happens, the newspaper is owned 
by a corporation, or its owner gives no per- 
sonal attention to its details, the managing ed- 
itor is the court of last resort on questions of 
news policy. Hie decides whether an eager 
“query,” or offer of news from a distant cor- 
respondent justifies ordering 1,000 words by 
wire, or is to be met with chilling silence. He 
determines whether a story is to be “played 


14 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

up ’ ’ on the first page, or given a ‘ i stickful ’ ’ as 
two inches of space are called, somewhere in- 
side. He can “turn the paper loose,” with 
special trains, tugboats, or in these days air- 
craft, an army of correspondents and artists, 
and a free hand to everybody to spend money 
like water getting the story into the office. 

Judgment of news is a vital part of a 
managing editor’s intellectual equipment. In 
some it seems to be an inborn quality. With 
unerring instinct they seize upon a seemingly 
unimportant bit of information and develop 
from it a news story that engages the attention 
of every reader. And it is as much of an art 
to determine the comparative worth of news 
stories as it is to fix the market value of a gem. 

To a well known New York managing editor 
came once the city editor in some excitement. 

“Here’s a first page story,” he said. “Man 
shot his wife in a crowded street car.” 

“What carline,” inquired the chief with pro- 
fessional calm. 

“Belt Line.” 

“Oh give it half a column on the inside. If 
it had been on- a Madison Avenue car or a Fifth 
Avenue bus it would have been worth a spread. 
People are always getting murdered along the 
Belt Line.” 

It was a managing editor of this type that 


THE VANISHED REPORTER 15 

first laid down the rule that if a dog hit a man 
it was not news, but if a man bit a dog it was. 

Sidney Perkins, now managing editor of The 
Blade, had done about everything on a news- 
paper that came his way. He had started 
with a college education, a great advantage to 
newspaper workers to-day, but found himself 
for months working for less than the men who 
had come up from the composing room with no 
.other education than the paper gave. But his 
sounder foundation finally carried him to the 
top. He had left the office early in the night, 
but was within reach of the telephone. It is one 
of the rudimentary rules of newspaper work 
that no man of any importance in the organ- 
ization ever gets wholly out of touch with the 
office. 

Over the phone Bowers briefly outlined the 
story to his chief. The sudden disappearance 
of the Italian banker had aroused interest 
chiefly because his books showed the bank to be 
entirely sound. Then why had he run away? 
Or had he been abducted? 

Holbrook, the star reporter, had evidently 
got some sort of a story, for he had reported 
to the office that he was on the trail of the miss- 
ing man, and had left a bunch of copy with the 
garage keeper from whom he had hired a car. 
But from the moment he had stepped into the 


16 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

car he had vanished, and the envelope which 
had been supposed to hold his stuff proved to 
contain only blank paper with the insigna of 
the murderous Mafia stamped on one sheet. 
What was the next step for The Blade to take? 

“ Looks like a pretty story,’ ’ said the Chief. 
“Hope the other fellows have nothing more 
about it than we. What does the City Press 
say?” 

The City Press Association is a cooperative 
news gathering force maintained by all the 
papers in the city, and sending its full report 
to each. It is relied upon for unimportant and 
routine news, and supplements the work of the 
papers’ regular reporters. 

“Oh, they have only the afternoon story of 
Salvatore’s disappearance and the fact that 
his bank is solvent. They say his family deny 
all knowledge of his whereabouts, and that his 
wife is prostrated.” 

“Well, better dress up their story and use it. 
See that the fact of Jimmie’s disappearance 
doesn’t get out. If the other papers haven’t 
got anything yet we may keep this for our own. 
Holbrook’s a steady fellow, isn’t he? Not a 
rounder?” 

“He’s a mighty live wire,” put in Bowers. 
“The fellows who have kidnapped him will have 


THE VANISHED REPORTER 17 


more trouble than those who stole a red hot 
stove.” 

“Well, have one man look up his lodgings, 
and go to his various haunts — he frequents 
the Andiron Club doesn’t he? Better put an- 
other man on the garage end of it; have him 
get solid with the wop that gave the boy the 
dummy package. But the chances are that he 
will not find that son of Sunny Italy again. 
He’s made himself scarce by now. But have 
our man hang around the garage and get all 
the facts he can. Tell all the boys to keep 
still. We don’t want the police in on this. 
It’s our reporter and our story. Good-night.” 

Bowers sat down at his desk to think out the 
mystery. In a moment a boy laid copies of 
the first editions of the other papers before 
him. Seizing them eagerly he scanned their 
columns for the Salvatore story. Ah, there 
it was. Only a stickful in each paper and none 
of the mysterious features even hinted at. 
So far so good. The other fellows suspected 
nothing more than the story, old to New York, 
of a foreign banker absconding with his deposit- 
ors ’ cash. That the absconder should have 
abducted a reporter at the same time was a 
novel feature of which his rivals knew nothing. 
Well, he’d show them to-morrow. Of course 


18 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

Holbrook would break away from his captors 
and come in with the story. But that could not 
be trusted to altogether. He must put some one 
on the track of the vanished reporter to give 
him aid if needed. 

Who w l ould be the best man for the work? 

Of course Holbrook himself was the best man 
for a bit of detective work and Bowers found 
himself smiling at the absurd persistence with 
which the notion of setting a man to investigate 
his own disappearance thrust itself on his 
mind. However with Holbrook gone he’d 
better take Yates. It was not precisely a 
police case and he wanted those talkative 
guardians of the peace kept in ignorance of it 
as long as possible. Yates would be precisely 
the man to find out all the police might learn 
on their own account without giving them the 
slightest hint of The Blade’s peculiar interest 
in the matter. 

It was Yates who had won journalistic fame 
by unraveling the mystery which grew out 
of the discovery of the headless body of a 
man, wrapped in burlaps and floating in the 
East River. 

Being headless the police were unable to 
identify the body — that is, the body being head- 
less not the police. But Yates blundered upon 
the solution of the mystery by one of those 


THE VANISHED REPORTER 19 

lucky chances which often lead to a newspaper 
hit. 

He had been at work steadily on the case 
for almost three days without sleep, and saw 
little chance of regular rest for a day to come. 
So, after the fashion of newspaper men in such 
a situation he betook himself to a Turkish bath, 
hoping that a steam, a cold plunge and an hour ’s 
doze would put him on his feet again. While 
recumbent on a marble slab undergoing the 
pounding and scraping that attach to this 
oriental form of refreshment, he heard two of 
the rubbers in an adjoining booth talking of 
the mysterious disappearance of one of their 
fellows. 

“It's six days now Tom’s been gone,” said 
one. “ Looks queer to me. His pay-envelope ’s 
in the office yet, so he can’t have quit. I went 
up to his room the other night, and his land- 
lady said she hadn’t seen him for several days, 
and the room was all dusty as if nobody had 
been there. He isn’t married, and nobody is 
looking for him. I’d think he’d just thrown 
up the job and gone off somewhere on a spree, 
but if he’d gone off on the loose he’d be want- 
ing that money in his pay-envelope.” 

No more sleepiness for the reporter. 
Calling to the men he asked the name of their 
missing friend. 


20 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

4 4 Did he have any marks on his body you 
could identify him by?” 

‘ ‘ Sure. He worked around here all day with 
nothing on but a waistcloth, and he had a big 
mole the size of a mouse just under his right 
shoulder blade. But why do you want to 
know?” the rubber asked. 

“Oh nothing. I just had an idea he might 
be somewhere and concealing his identity,” 
said the reporter, who hurried through his 
bath with a cold plunge that took the place of 
the sleep he had promised himself. A few 
minutes later at the city morgue he had iden- 
tified the ghastly body, and with the clew thus 
obtained had, within a day or two, run down the 
criminals implicated in the murder without the 
aid of the police, and without the news being 
obtainable by any other paper. 

Those are the two chief triumphs of news- 
paper detective work — to be able to dispense 
with the police, and to “beat” your rivals. 

With this achievement of Yates’s in his 
memory Bowers felt that this was the 
man for the job on hand. So turning back to 
the desk he took up the assignment book and 
wrote on a line under date of the day just com- 
ing in. 

Yates See Mr. Bowers. 

A word here about the assignment book. 


THE VANISHED REPORTER 21 


It is the true nerve center of a newspaper organ- 
ization. It is the book of fate to the younger 
reporters for on its notations, day by day, hang 
their hopes of profitable work, their chief 
chances of success and advancement in their 
calling. It is in brief the method adopted in 
large offices of notifying the score or so of 
reporters just what their work for the day is to 
be. 

In appearances it is simply a big dated journal 
or diary, with a page for every day. On these 
pages, day by day, assistants to the city editor 
note down under the appropriate future dates 
such happenings as they learn of as may be 
worth reporting, or “ covering” in newspaper 
phrase. All the newspapers are carefully 
read in search of such advance dates. Every 
reporter bringing in a story which promises 
later developments reports to the keeper of the 
book the date on which it is to be continued. 
The mass of invitations, advance notices, 
accounts of adjourned meetings that flow into 
a newspaper office all give up dates for the 
assignment book. Infinite pains and foresight 
enter into its composition, and properly main- 
tained it is a sort of chronology of all coming 
events. 

Every morning the city editor receives from 
his assistant the book written up for the day. 


22 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

Thereupon he scans the subjects critically and 
determines what reporter shall be assigned to 
each. This is one of the tests of ability in a 
city editor — to so know the qualities of his staff 
as to always send the right man on each story. 
A picturesque descriptive writer is little needed 
at a meeting of The Friends of Foreign 
Missionaries, and a man with a taste for “high- 
brow” occasions would do the paper little good 
at the annual outing of the Mulberry Bend 
Dancing and Athletic Association. 

When the reporters come in at noon and 
again at 6.30 p. m. the customary hours for 
reporting on a morning paper — this book is ex- 
posed that from it each may learn what 
is to be his job for the day. 

This is the reporters ’ daily lottery. In 
most large cities the reporter is paid by space, 
that is so much a column for matter printed in 
the paper. Upon the nature of his assignment 
depends to a very great degree his day earn- 
ings. “Cubs,” as the new reporters are called, 
are given those assignments which require 
little experience, and which for that very reason 
will produce stories requiring but little space. 
As a result the weekly earnings of the “cubs” 
are of the sort to test their gameness, and their 
ability to live on nothing a day. If they prove 
game enough to stand this test they will 


THE VANISHED REPORTER 23 


gradually get more productive assignments, 
which in time lead up to incomes that profes- 
sional men might well envy. 

A typical page of an assignment book reads 
something like this. 

Wednesday, July 27, 1936 


Investigation Trade Board Brooks 

City Hall Myers 

Hollister trial, get plenty pictures Sanders 

Go to Sing Sing „ Kice 

Van Antwerp wedding . .Miss Cady, take two artists 

Anderson murder Brooks 

Interview Morgan Forbes 


In addition to the reporters who get their 
assignments from the book are those who have 
their regular daily posts, as the man attached 
to the city hall, the police headquarters man, 
the ship news reporter, the Wall Street men 
and so on. But for the bulk of the reportorial 
staff the assignment book is the announcement 
of the orders of the day, and they grab for it on 
entering the “shop” with the eagerness that 
attends any game of chance. 

The note made by Bowers on the book this 
night was merely a notification to the reporter 
named that the city editor had some special 
service for him the nature of which required 
special directions. Having jotted it down 


24 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

Bowers pulled on his coat and started to leave. 

Phil Derby, who had been watching his move- 
ments, stole a hasty look at the book and then 
intercepted the editor on his way. 

“Mr. Bowers,’ ’ said he rather wistfully, 
“Couldn’t you give me a chance on that story 
of the Italian ? I know something about it, and 
I’ve been here a long time without a chance to 
handle a story. I don’t want to be a copy boy 
forever. ’ ’ 

“Well, Phil,” was the not unkindly re- 
sponse. “ That’s a pretty big story for a cub. 
I was just thinking that with Jimmie gone I 
didn’t have a reporter really capable of work- 
ing the thing out. So it seems as if it would 
be a little beyond a youngster like you. And 
besides, you know, you really don’t know any- 
thing particular about it. The wop wished off: 
his Black Hand message on you, but that 
doesn’t put you on to the inside of the story. 
But you ’re right about being due for some 
reportorial work, and I’ll promise you some 
assignments next week. Remind me of it 
Monday.” 

The editor turned to go. A thought struck 
Phil. In a more subdued manner he inter- 
posed. 

“Well, Mr. Bowers, to-morrow is my day off, 
and if you would not mind my taking a leave of 


THE VANISHED REPORTER 25 


absence for Saturday and Sunday I’d be grate- 
ful. There are some things I want to do, and 
Monday I’ll remind you of those assign- 
ments.” 

“ All right, Phil,”said the other good natur- 
edly. “But don’t go and vanish like Jimmie,” 
and therewith he was gone. 

Phil turned back toward the copy desk. The 
hard rush of the night was now over. Most 
of the desks were vacated, though at one a 
group of men on the late watch sat playing 
cards to while away the time until “something 
might break.” Phil dropped into a chair and 
fell to thinking. 

It had suddenly occurred to him during his 
talk with Bowers that while he might not know 
anything definite about the affair, he at least 
knew as much as any one else. And he did not 
believe the reporters were such endowed gen- 
iuses that they could solve this mystery any 
better than he, if he had the time to give to it. 
With this thought in his mind he had asked his 
chief for the leave of absence which would give 
him three days to work on the case. 

“I don’t see how it will be any harder for 
me just because I am a copy boy,” he thought. 
‘ 1 The office wants the story kept quiet, so even 
if I were a reporter I could not go to the po- 
lice for help, or tell anybody what I was work- 


26 PHILIP DERBY, EEPOETER 

in g on. So I guess I’ll just plug along on my 
own for three days, and see what I can get. 
Gee! If I could get the whole story it would 
jump me right on the local staff without being 
a cub at all.” 

He went over to the city editor’s desk to 
look through the waste basket for the stuff he 
had brought back from the garage. The en- 
velope he found quickly enough, and a roll of 
blank sheets of paper, but the sheet with the 
Black Hand Mr. Bowers had locked away in 
the desk. Phil studied what he had intently. 

“One thing is sure, that’s not copy paper,” 
he thought. 

The paper used in newspaper offices called 
“copy paper” is merely the ordinary print 
paper from the press room cut into convenient 
sizes. Any newspaper man would recognize 
it at once. 

“Now that means that the fellow at the gar- 
age has probably got what Jimmie wrote, and 
substituted this paper for it. If I could get 
into the garage and get hold of Jimmie’s orig- 
inal copy it might help to clear the matter up. 

“This thing reminds me of the story of the 
old darkey that found the mule,” he said to 
himself. “The mule had run away and all 
the white men in the place had given up the 
search for it. Then old Unc’ Ajax took hold. 


THE VANISHED REPORTER 27 


In about three hours he turned up at the vil- 
lage store with the animal. 

“ ‘How’d you get him so quick V asked the 
amazed owner. 

“ ‘Well sah, I jest sot down and thought, 
now if I was a mule and had runned away 
what ’ud I do ! And when I ’d got that figgered 
out I jest went and done it. And here’s yer 
mule.’ ” 

“But somehow/ ’ reflected Phil in conclu- 
sion, “I don’t just see how I can figure out what 
Jimmie would do if abducted, for he didn’t do 
it. He had it done to him. Guess I’d better 
go home and sleep on it.” 

And full of great plans for the morrow he 
went out into the city streets, deserted save 
for a few night workers, and the rumbling 
market wagons from the farms across the riv- 
ers bringing in the day’s supply of food for 
the sleeping city. 


CHAPTER III 


HOW REPORTERS “ CATCH ON” 

Getting a reportorial post on a New York 
newspaper is a little easier than securing a 
personal interview with the Chief Justice of 
the United 'States Supreme Court hut not 
much. And the job, once obtained, does not for 
some time pay anything in proportion to the 
difficulty of winning it. City editors usually 
give the applicant for such a post the idea that 
it is the most precious gift at the disposal of 
man, but once it is given its value, measured 
by the weekly pay envelope, is not so precious 
after all. 

Veteran journalists who have attained the 
highest editorial positions, or have even become 
owners of their own newspapers, often have 
humorous tales to tell of how they got their 
first jobs. In most cases they admit that it was 
through the influence of some personal friend 
on the staff, pertinacity in seeking the job 
that beat down all obstacles, or, more often than 
any other one cause, sheer luck. Men who 
afterwards rose to the very highest positions on 
the New York press have often boasted that in 
28 


HOW REPORTERS “CATCH ON” 29 

the days preceding their actual apprenticeship 
they had to spend more than one night on a 
bench in City Hall park for lack of other lodg- 
ing while they were fighting for a place on 
Park Row — as the newspaper center of the me- 
tropolis was then called. 

In waiting long for his chance Phil Derby had 
undergone the experience common to most 
young newspaper men. There is about the pro- 
fession a certain glamour — a charm that at- 
tracts to it more aspirants than can readily 
find places. Every city editor has a catalogue 
of aspirants which seems to equal a small city 
directory, and there is reason for the suspicion 
that it is seldom looked at but that the man 
who happens to be on the spot when the need 
arises gets the job. 

Phil had seen this happen more than once 
in his humble association with the editorial 
rooms of The Blade. He knew how difficult 
it was for the mere unknown man in search 
of a job to secure even a hearing with the city 
editor, and how short and brusque were the 
responses which such applicants usually re- 
ceived from that potentate. But he knew too 
how quick was the recognition given in the 
office to a piece of good work, and how sud- 
denly a reporter might be elevated from the 
lowly station of a “cub” to the “star” class. 


30 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

Steady, persistent, accurate and grubbing 
work counts in newspaper offices as it does in 
any other calling. But nowhere is the element 
of luck greater; the chance of enduring suc- 
cess founded on a sudden flash of intuition 
half so great. 

Of course the patient grubber does not al- 
ways get his reward at once. Chester Lord, 
long the managing editor of the New York Sun 
at the time of that paper’s greatest brilliancy, 
tells the story of a reporter who encountered 
a tough assignment at the time of the great 
blizzard in New York in 1888. A report had 
come in to the office that several funeral par- 
ties had been overwhelmed by the storm and 
the driving snow out at Greenwood Cemetery 
and were in grave danger. A new reporter 
was assigned to the job of looking them up. 
It was before the days of subways, and the 
elevated trains were stalled by the storm. 
The cemetery was on the extreme northern 
limit of the city. But by super-human exer- 
tions the reporter managed to reach the spot, 
and plunged through the drifts looking for 
signs of distress. He returned to the office, 
worn and utterly exhausted after six hours 
struggle with the storm and with frostbitten 
feet that had to be thawed out in a bucket of 
cold water. When he was able to hold a pen 


HOW REPORTERS “CATCH ON” 31 


he wrote all the story that the news demanded. 
It was this : 

“During the day it was reported that sev- 
eral funeral parties had been overwhelmed 
in Greenwood Cemetery. Investigation showed 
this to be untrue.” 

A reporter who before the end of his ca- 
reer developed into a widely known foreign cor- 
respondent and managing editor of the New 
York papers tells this story of the way in 
which accident helps the young newspaper 
man to get a start: 

“To a beginner, opportunity is everything. 
It came to me quite by accident. On the morn- 
ing of July 12, 1870, the city editor said: ‘Go 
to Elm Park this afternoon and write a quarter 
column about the picnic of the Orangemen. ’ 
The assignment was given to me, as a novice, 
only because of its unimportance. Elm Park 
lay on the high ridge of land between Central 
Park and the Hudson River, where West 
Ninety-second Street is to-day. St. Agnes’ 
Church now stands upon its grounds, but at 
that time neither Columbus Avenue nor any 
neighboring cross-street had been cut through. 
The only means of access was by Eighth Av- 
enue horse-cars, and an hour was required to 
get there. 

“I was very young, and when I reached the 


32 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

park the Orangemen, their wives and daugh- 
ters took me to their hearts — especially as I 
was the only newspaper reporter on the 
ground. I danced with the girls and played 
ball with the boys. 

“ About four o’clock, without warning, the 
wooden gate was burst in and a gang of men 
who had been at work on the big water-pipes 
of Eighth Avenue came rushing into the picnic 
grounds. Stones were thrown and clubs 
freely used. Many people were struck down. 
One man, of middle age, seated with his wife 
and children, was hit on the head with a pav- 
ing-stone and killed in my sight. Half an hour 
elapsed before a squad of police appeared and 
drove the intruders off. 

“The ‘Elm Park Riot’ is a memorable event 
in metropolitan history. 

‘ ‘ The novice knew that he had a highly impor- 
tant and sensational piece of news. (Lather- 
ing the names of the injured men and women, 
and securing from the widow her place of resi- 
dence and all obtainable information concern- 
ing the dead man’s life, I ran to the Eighth 
Avenue car line, reaching Printing House 
Square before the news of the riot had come 
from Police Headquarters. At that time, no 
telegraphic or telephonic communication existed 
between the station-houses and headquarters. 


HOW REPORTERS “CATCH ON” 33 


“When told the facts in my possession, City 
Editor Moore comprehended that he could ‘ beat 
the town’ if he could get the best out of the only 
reporter eye-witness to the riot. He dispatched 
half a dozen men to various points; but they 
found the park closed and the picnickers gone, 
sorrowing, to their homes. Only fragmentary 
statements were procurable at the station- 
houses in the Bloomingdale region. 

“Attentions were showered upon the young 
reporter that night. I was given a desk in a 
private room; my dinner was ordered from a 
restaurant; every encouragement was given to 
me to write — write, and keep writing. I was 
told to go on and not to stop. Experienced 
workmen laid out the story for me, telling me 
how to ‘keep going/ but warning me not to 
quit. Crudities in my copy were trimmed out ; 
many parts of my work were re-written and ex- 
panded. In the final edition of the paper of 
the next morning I received credit for several 
columns of matter at $10 per column. 

‘ ‘ ‘ My fortune is made ! * I thought. Includ- 
ing the account of the funeral of the Orange- 
man, in which I walked beside the hearse from 
Tompkins Square to a grave in Greenwood, 
my bill for the week exceeded $100.” 

But to return to Phil Derby and the prob- 
lems that were engaging him. As he walked 


34 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

through the brightening dawn several stories 
of lucky strikes in the newspaper world passed 
through his mind. There was the classic one 
of Fred Warner of Boston, who led the police 
to the scene of a well planned bank robbery 
and nabbed the safe-breakers, all as the re- 
sult of wondering why the watchman at the 
door of the bank did not know the name of the 
street the bank faced. 

Warner was motoring through a suburban 
town on his way back to Boston about dusk. 
Hfe was uncertain of his way, but knew that if 
he could find Washington Street — the exten- 
sion of the well-known thoroughfare of that 
name in the city — he would have a direct road. 
Seeing a man sitting reading behind the steel 
grating of the front door of a closed bank 
Warner appealed to him for aid. 

Friend, can you tell me where Washing- 
ton Street is?” he shouted. 

The watchman seemed puzzled for a moment 
then replied hesitatingly, 

‘ 4 Keep on the way you are going. It crosses 
this street a few blocks down.” 

Not doubting his informant Warner drove 
on, but as he studied the street signs looking 
for the name of the cross street he was 
rather nonplussed to discover that it was 
Washington Street on which he was * driving. 


HOW REPORTERS “CATCH ON” 35 

For a moment he gave little thought to 
the matter. He was in a hurry, and 
on the right road — that was all that interested 
him but as he drove on alone in his car he be- 
gan to wonder — and when a reporter begins 
to wonder some discovery is apt to be made. 

“Curious that fellow did not know the name 
of the street his bank fronted,” he said to him- 
self musingly. “He acted as if he belonged 
there — had on a uniform and a badge all right. 
In these summer months there’s nothing un- 
usual in a night watchman leaving the door 
open except for the grating and sitting there 
till the night gets cool. But they don’t usu- 
ally leave a bank in charge overnight to a 
stranger, and that fellow must be a stranger 
if he doesn’t know the names of the streets. 
As a rule a night watchman must be personally 
known to at least the executive officers of the 
bank, and that means that he must have lived 
in the town some time. And that fellow hesi- 
tated before he answered me at all. Of course 
I shouted from the car and he might not have 
understood me — might have thought I asked 
for some other street.” 

Meantime his car was speeding on, putting 
mile after mile between him and the spot about 
which his vague suspicions were forming. The 
instinct of the reporter was strong in him, and 


36 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

steadily suggested that he go back and investi- 
gate. 

“I hate to go back,” he said aloud, “but I’ve 
a hunch there’s something wrong at that bank. 
Perhaps the watchman’s gone looney, or per- 
haps that fellow laid the real watchman out 
and is standing guard while his pals are crack- 
ing the safe. It’s Saturday night too, the 
very night that bank burglars choose for oper- 
ating in the country because they have Sun- 
day to make their getaway before the bank re- 
opens. I suppose Pm making a darned fool of 
myself, and its going to cost me a lot of time, 
but Pm going back to look into things.” 

So saying he: swung his car about and started 
back over the road by which he had come. As 
he came into the town he slowed up, 

“I’ll just run slowly by the bank and see 
if that fellow is still there,” he thought. 

It was darker now and he moved slowly a- 
long the side of the street furthest from the 
bank. As he drew near he saw that the watch- 
man was no longer in the doorway ; the banking 
room was lighted and he could see his man sit- 
ting at the further end, in a sort of cashier’s en- 
closure and still with his paper in his hand. 
And just then something occurred that made 
'Warner think he had been a fool to spend good 


HOW REPORTERS “CATCH ON” 37 


time and 24-cent gasoline running back to look 
after a country bank watchman. 

For just then a policeman came lounging 
along, stopped at the grilled door of the bank 
and shouted, 

“Hullo, Aleck! Any cooler in there?” 

An answering word or two which Warner 
could not hear came from within, and the officer, 
seemingly suspecting nothing, passed on his 
way, looking in now and then at the door of 
some closed shop, and occasionally trying a 
lock. 

“Well, I AM a poor gink,” thought Fred, 
highly disgusted with the situation and with 
himself. “Here I come chasing back some 
fifteen miles to spy on a .suspicious character 
who is on such terms with the police that they 
call him by his first name/ I guess I’ll give up 
this game and go home.” 

However the car needed some gas and as he 
turned in at the neighboring station for a sup- 
ply it occurred to him that he would not get 
home until late and that he might feed himself 
as well as his engine. So he strolled along 
the street to where a great flare of yellow light 
betrayed the location of an old street car, fit- 
ted with tables, chairs and a kitchenette and 
which under the engaging title of “The Little 


38 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

Delmonico ’s 1 ’ proffered “ Quick lunches at all 
hours.” 

On the way he passed the door of the bank 
and looking in again he had a clear view of all 
the interior that was not cut off by a heavy 
walnut partition which screened the clerks 
from the part of the room occupied by custom- 
ers. No vault was visible, and its door was 
presumably behind that partition. 

“Not very up to date,” mused Warner, 
“The best defense for a bank vault is publicity. 
It ought to be out in the open, brightly lighted 
so that the most casual passer can see anything 
going on around it.” 

There were not many passers-by at this 
moment however, and Warner stopped to look 
at the watchman reading his paper. He was 
still oppressed by his “ hunch ,” his suspicion 
that something was wrong. He noticed that as 
his footsteps paused before the door the watch- 
man, who had laid his paper down, picked it up 
as though to continue his reading. Held thus 
it practically concealed his whole face and no 
one looking in casually could have recognized 
him. The action and attitude were, however, 
natural enough and Fred would have thought 
nothing of them had he not (Suddenly noticed 
that the paper was held upside down. 

‘ ‘ That r s queer too, ’ ’ thought Warner. “ He ’s 


HOW REPORTERS “CATCH ON” 39 


not reading' that paper. Looks like he was just 
using it for a screen.” 

His appetite for coffee and crullers began to 
wane, and the reportorial hunger for infor- 
mation grew once more upon him. 

“I'll just stroll around behind the bank and 
see if there is anything suspicious,” he thought. 

The bank was a two story brick structure 
near the middle of a long block, behind which 
ran a narrow unpaved alley. It was dark by 
this time and the only patches of light in the 
alley were from the back windows of the bank 
and one or two shops in which night lights had 
been left burning. As Warner peered around 
the corner into the blackness of the alley, he 
thought he saw a lurking form in the shadows. 

“Looks like a picket on guard,” said he to 
himself. By this time he was fairly well con- 
vinced that .something was going on, and re- 
flected that if he walked boldly into the alley he 
would either frighten away the crooks who, he 
felt sure, were robbing the bank, or would get 
himself laid out by the picket on guard. Either 
would spoil the story — and that to a newspaper 
man is an unforgivable blunder. Little as he 
liked to do it he sought out the policeman who 
had seemed so friendly with the night watch- 
man. 

“You’re crazy in the head,” responded that 


40 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

guardian of the peace contemptuously. 
“Didn't I just say hello to Aleck?" 

“Sure you did, but did you see his face? 
Does Aleck usually read his paper upside 
down?" 

After some discussion, in the course of which 
the officer was with difficulty dissuaded from 
walking “right up to the door and calling Aleck 
out," the reporter persuaded him to take the 
story to headquarters only a block away. As 
a result officers blocked the exits from the alley, 
and a rush upon the front door of the bank 
disclosed the true watchman bound and gagged 
on the floor, while the newspaper reader was 
shielding from observation a man diligently 
engaged in drilling the door of the vault. The 
detection of the robbers was a first page story 
the next day, and Warner found himself well 
paid for having followed the trail his suspicions 
had indicated. 

Newspaper annals are full of records of 
successes based on just such seeming bits of 
luck. But in fact they are not luck, but rather 
the result of steady development of the powers 
of observation. When Sherlock Holmes re- 
proached Dr. Watson for not noting even the 
commonplace things which he encountered in 
his daily walks and conversations he was laying 
down a useful creed for the would-be reporter. 


CHAPTER IV 


A CLUE IN THE NIGHT 

Some years ago a New York newspaper, in 
its restless search for new sensations, set out 
to prove that it was virtually impossible to de- 
tect a fugitive among the crowds of a great 
city, even though printed descriptions and 
newspaper pictures of the individual were 
available for identification. “The Mysterious 
Mr. X” was created for the purpose of demon- 
strating this theory, and incidentally attracting 
attention to the paper. His part in the enter- 
prise was easy, and not unpleasant. All he 
was asked to do was to loiter about town, go 
where the crowds were thickest, be in the Wall 
Street district at the noon-hour, and in the 
theater belt at night. Instead of avoiding 
notice he was to court it, while day by day the 
newspaper printed pictures of him, the story 
of his wanderings the day before, and the fact — 
which would seem to have been calculated to 
arouse general interest — that whosoever recog- 
nized him and tapped him on the shoulder with 
the greeting “You are the Mysterious Mr. X” 

41 


42 PHILIP DERBY, REPOETEE 

would straightway be escorted to the newspaper 
office and receive a reward of $50 for his per- 
spicacity. 

Now the interesting thing about this experi- 
ment was that the man, though heralded more 
widely than was ever any fleeing murderer, 
walked the streets of New York for days with- 
out detection. He took pains, by eccentricities 
of garb and demeanor to attract attention. 
Being provided with a comfortable expense 
account he frequented spots where individuals 
were apt to observe each other — fashionable 
restaurants, the horse-show, the theaters. He 
strolled much about the newspaper district, and 
afterwards told with glee of riding in the office 
elevator of the paper offering the reward, and 
engaging in conversation two men who must 
have read the daily story, neither of whom 
recognized him as “The Mysterious Mr. X.” 
On one occasion he sat in a cafe, and directed 
the attention of a stranger to the newspaper’s 
offer, remarking that it seemed an easy way to 
pick up $50. The man addressed agreed with 
him, but evidently did not give the matter 
enough thought to notice whether the affable 
stranger who had engaged him in conversation 
resembled the picture in the paper about which 
he was talking. 

The newspaper which made this test — re- 


A CLUE IN THE NIGHT 


43 


peated afterwards in several cities — did it with 
the purpose of discovering the chances of a 
criminal for escape if, instead of fleeing to 
strange solitudes, he should try rather to lose 
himself in the great multitude of men. 

It was into this multitude that the vanished 
reporter had been carried. The traditional 
needle in a haystack offered no more baffling 
problem to the searcher. He had disappeared 
at midnight somewhere along a line leading 
from Little Italy far up town, through the 
teeming East Side over to the dark and gloomy 
water side of South Brooklyn. Along that 
route lay the most crowded quarters of the 
various foreign colonies^ the darkest purlieus 
of the underworld, the loneliest reaches of the 
river front. If it were the purpose of the ab- 
ductors of Jim Holbrook to do away with him, 
he had himself chosen to travel the way which 
afforded the safest and most secluded spots 
for the concealment of the crime. Even New 
York’s Chinatown, with it's maze of under- 
ground passages planned for the discomfiture 
of the pursuing police, lay in the immediate 
vicinity of this route. 

These reflections occupied the mind of the 
city editor of The Blade as he strode home- 
ward after the paper went to press the night of 
Holbrook’s disappearance. He was one of the 


44 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

veterans of the (service in New York and his 
knowledge of the city’s purlieus was en- 
cyclopedic. Yates, the reporter who had been 
assigned to the story, accompanied Mr. Bowers 
on his walk up-town, and as they plodded 
through the silent and deserted streets the city 
editor strove to formulate in his own mind a 
theory as to the mystery and plan for its 
solution. 

4 ‘ Jimmy Holbrook was all right four hours 
ago,” he said. 4 ‘We know that, because he 
phoned me at 11 o’clock and I recognized his 
voice. Besides the handwriting on the envelope 
was his, even if the stuff inside wasn’t. So 
what we have to consider is the various things 
that might have happened to him after he left 
the garage. It ’is a district in which almost any- 
thing might happen to an ordinary man, but 
reporters don’t often get sandbagged. Either 
fate, or the fact that they’re generally known 
to be broke and not worth holding up protects 
them. ’ ’ 

“Perhaps he stopped somewhere for a late 
lunch and was doped,” suggested Yates. 

“Nonsense ! Don’t you see that the fact that 
Jimmy’s copy was taken out of the envelope at 
the garage shows that the garage-keeper was 
in on the deal whatever it may have been. He 
knew when the car left his doors just what wa$ 


A CLUE IN THE NIGHT 


45 


going to happen, to Jim. Whatever was done, 
wasn’t done by him for he was still at his shop 
when our boy went up after the copy, but he 
knows just what was done. The first thing to 
do is to find him, and make him talk. ’ ’ 

“Easy enough to find him,” put in the 
reporter, “but it’s another thing to make him 
talk . 9 9 

“That’s right too. We can’t apply the third 
degree as the police do, and beat up the poor 
devil until he tells all he knows and a good deal 
more. And we can’t go to the police to do it for 
us. Well, it’s up to you, Yates. The assign- 
ment has been given you. ’ ’ 

“Have you any theory to work on?” 

“Well, of course it is all part of a Black 
Hand plot. That Italian banker has been 
abducted for blackmail. The crooks believed 
that Holbrook had enough of their story to 
defeat their ends if it were printed, so they 
kidnaped him too, and threw his copy away. 
Simple sort of ruffians, those blackhanders. 
Jim’s original story might have been worth a 
column, but they’ve made it worth a page at 
least — whether we find him or not,” concluded 
Bowers, with a rather darkling suggestion 
that a dead reporter under such conditions 
might be a bigger news item than even a kid- 
naped one. 


46 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

4 ‘Of course I’ll get to the garage first thing 
in the morning. But there ’s a good chance that 
that fellow has skipped. Or even if he’s there 
he may not be willing to talk. Then what?” 

“Your job, Yates! But you know you are 
pretty likely to run into a clue by just sticking 
around the place, or following' up the route that 
Jim started on when he left for the boat. 
Sometimes instinct or accident helps you a lot 
on a case like this. Ever heah the story of how 
Bogart, once city editor on the Sun, was in at 
the death in a murder? No. This is the way 
John used to tell it: 

“ ‘One day I was walking up Broadway when 
suddenly a current of news came up from a 
cellar and enveloped me. I felt the difference 
in the temperature of the air. I tingled with 
the electricity or magnetism in the current. 
It seemed to stop me, to turn me around, and 
to force me to descend some stairs which 
reached up to the street by my side. 

“ ‘I ran down the stairs and as I did so a 
pistol shot sounded in my ears. One man had 
shot another and I found myself at the scene 
upon the instant.’ 

“You’ll find that a ‘hunch,’ as the boys call 
it, or ‘the sixth sense’ as they say when they 
want to be literary, is the thing that makes the 
successful reporter. You can’t tell about it 


A CLUE IN THE NIGHT 


47 


Til yon try. There was the case of the Wash- 
ington correspondent who heard a politician 
inquiring about the climate of Lisbon and 
instantly spotted him as the successful candi- 
date for the post of minister at that city. Out 
in Chicago once a newspaper man happening to 
see several important financiers entering a 
building in the down town district at an hour of 
the night when that section was usually deserted 
jumped to the conclusion that they were 
assembling to consider the case of a national 
bank which was reported to be in straits. 
Absolutely forcing his way into their conference 
he told them he was going to print a story based 
on his suspicions, and suggested it would be to 
the advantage of the financial community if 
they told him the exact truth. They kicked 
pretty vigorously, and declared that if he 
printed a word they ’d 1 get him fired. In the end 
however they gave up, the story was printed, 
the bank failed and its president was sent to 
the pen. If the newspaper sense had not led 
the reporter to wonder why the president of 
the biggest bank in Chicago was wandering 
around the financial district at midnight the 
Tribune would have lost one of its historic 
beats. ’ r 

“All of which is very interesting,” said 
Yates, “but I’m not confident of getting a 


48 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

hunch that will set me on Jimmy's trail. Did 
you ever think how easy it would have been for 
those fellows to shanghai him? If he drank at 
all I'd figure that was just what might have 
happened. As it is he might have tried to get 
into the confidence of those fellows by drinking 
with them, and they might have doped his drink 
even if it was a soft one. Once this was done 
they could dump him into the hold of any out- 
going ship with or without the skipper's knowl- 
edge. They probably figured that if their drive 
on the banker could be kept out of the news- 
papers for a few days he’d give up the hush- 
money they are after. ' ' 

“Yes, that's true enough. We used to get 
some bully good stories of shanghaing in the 
days when New York bay was full of sailing 
ships waiting for crews. The trade isn't so 
profitable in these days of steam. But I don't 
believe they ever shanghaied Jimmy. What's 
more I don’t believe they've thrown him off 
this job. Unless you get busy and find him, 
he 's likely to turn up at the office in the morning 
with the story of his own abduction and scoop 
you. So you'd better get busy. Here's my 
corner — good-night. ' ' 

The city editor turned off into one of the 
brown-stone canyons which at that time served 
New York for residence streets. The reporter 


A CLUE IN THE NIGHT 


49 


continued liis way up town. At Union Square, 
being somewhat chilled, he turned into an 
ancient street car which had been made over 
into a sort of peripatetic eating-place and de- 
manded coffee. It was a regular resort for him 
daily when the grayness of dawn was just be- 
ginning to redden at the eastern ends of the 
cross town streets. Often he brought up a 
first edition, fresh from the press, and gave it 
to the sanguinary looking Italian who earned 
an honest living by selling doughnuts and coffee 
to newspapermen, street cleaners, policemen 
and other toilers of the night. 

“Anything doing to-night, Luigi ?” he in- 
quired as he clambered on a stool in front of the 
doubtful counter. “Can’t you dig up a good 
story for me! I come in here every morning 
and buy your sinkers, and stake you for a paper, 
and you don’t ever give me a tip. I know 
there are plenty of things doing down in Little 
Italy that you could tell about, but you don’t. 
Come on now. What ’s the latest in Black Hand 
circles?” 

The Italian started as though struck by a 
chance shot, but recovered himself quickly, 
grinning. 

“All the Black Hand stories in your news- 
paper offices — we have nothing like that in our 
places. It’s what you call the fake isn’t it?” 


50 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

“Fake nothing. Abont four-fifths of you 
Italians are paying tribute to that crowd to-day. 
Probably you do it yourself. I heard once that 
they sent out word to places like yours that if 
you didn’t put up $5.00 or so a month they’d 
come round every now and then and smash 
your windows. I don’t see any broken panes in 
your windows. Guess you put up the five all 
right. ’ ’ 

“Yes, you Americans! You always talk 
about Black Hand. You think only Italians 
hold people up for* graft. Now I tell you. I 
do get letters like that. So does everybody 
like me doing business all night on the streets. 
But from Italians? No. Sometimes from 
gangs — just street boys who say they smash 
my windows, or tip over Mike’s cart, or steal 
Pete’s bananas. 'What then? Talk to police 
— your American police ? He do nothing unless 
we give him a tip. Cop on this beat have supper 
in my place every night, and never pay nothing. 
Is he what you call dago Black-Hander? No. 
He’s a Mick. Pat his name is, but nobody ever 
says anything about what he does. Only to- 
night he was here — sitting where you are now 
and somebody hollered ‘Murder!’ outside. A 
big car going by, three men fighting inside, 
window glass breaking, and driver stepping on 
gas so go like the wind. Think your cop try to 


A CLUE IN THE NIGHT 


51 


catch it. Not much. He look from the plate of 
beans he was eating and laugh. ‘ Some one got 
a sucker in that car,’ says he. ‘No use for me 
to bother — I’m busy here.’ ” 

“Say, what time did that happen?” in- 
terrupted Yates, loosing all interest in the 
question whether the Black Hiand or the police 
were the biggest grafters. 

“Oh, about twelve — maybe one o’clock. 
Terrible noise. Car coming down from north 
on Madison Avenue — somebody smash the win- 
dow, and holler like blazes. Went down into 
Bowery.” 

“Man’s voice, I suppose.” 

“Oh yes — cuss like thunder too.” 

“H]ow could you tell there were more than 
two people in the car?” 

“I ran out when I first heard the noise. 
Come, I’ll show you. See right there under 
electric light I thought the car was going to run 
up on side-walk. It made a big turn all of a 
sudden, but driver swung it into middle of 
street. When it was close by the light I could 
see that two men were holding one fellow down 
on the seat. It all over in a minute, and I got 
back in time to give that cop some more beans.” 

“All right, Luigi. You surely lead a lively 
life. I guess I ’ll go over and look at the track 
that car took. There might be a story in it.” 


52 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

Nodding good-night to the Italian the re- 
porter walked a few feet to where Madison 
Avenue crossed Fourteenth Street. It was 
now daylight, hut even at night the spot was 
brightly lighted and he could readily see how 
keen eyes could have made out what was going 
on in a car on that thoroughfare. A few splint- 
ers of broken glass gave testimony of the Ital- 
ian’s story that he heard a breaking window as 
the car sped by, but the smooth hard asphalt 
retained no traces to show the course it had 
taken. Yates considered his problem carefully. 

“ Jim may have been in that car, ” he thought. 
“If he left the garage up at 163rd Street soon 
after he telephoned, he would be getting along 
here just about the time Luigi says he heard 
the scrap. Now he naturally would come 
straight down Madison Avenue as there is no 
traffic there late at night. Bowers said he was 
going over to the piers at South Brooklyn. 
If he planned that he could either cross the 
river oil the Queensborough Bridge at 59th and 
keep on down the Long Island side of the river, 
or come on down to one of the lower bridges. 
That would bring him past Union Square and 
into the Bowery just as this car was running. 
Wonder what started the row! Perhaps he 
began to get suspicious when they ran by 59th 
Street without taking that bridge, and tried to 


A CLUE IN THE NIGHT 


53 


give them orders. When they refused to obey 
he tried to get out. I’ll bet that started the 
row. 

“Now, let’s see. It’s d,ay light. I’ve had a 
bite to eat and I think I’ll just work my way 
southward toward Mulberry Street where the 
wops live and see if I can run up against that 
car. If they took Jim into any of the Italian 
haunts down there they’d have to leave the car 
outside. The district isn’t so very big — I 
could walk ,all through it in an hour.” 

And thus, full of eager speculation, Yates 
turned into the Bowery and walked toward the 
down-town Italian colony. He reflected that 
the solitude of the streets at that hour would 
make the quest easier. By day these highways 
in the congested tenement house district are 
crowded from curb to curb, lines of push carts 
on either side helping to block the way. But 
.at four in the morning few people were out, 
and at a glance one could take in the entire 
length of a street in that narrow section of 
Manhattan Island, and see clearly whether any 
vehicle stood in it. Passing Bleecker and 
Houston Street with a swift examination Y.ates 
turned into Mulberry Street. He had gone 
but a little way, glancing sharply to the right 
and left as he crossed intersecting streets, when 
a thrill came over him. Drawn up before a 


54 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

dingy tenement half-a-block away stood a closed 
automobile — the only vehicle of any sort in sight 
in that deserted section. Yates made for it 
at once. If it only had a broken window, he 
reflected, the quarry would be in sight. Sure 
enough when he came near enough he saw that 
one window was broken out. 

4 4 Wonder if I could get in?” he thought. 
4 4 Perhaps I might And a clue of some sort,” 
and acting on the thought he started to turn 
the handle when a rough voice demanded to 
know what he wanted, and a swarthy man, 
who had been half-lying across the back seat 
showed ,a somewhat threatening face at the 
window and demanded to know what he wanted. 

4 4 Oh, the car looked sort of bunged up,” said 
Yates, keeping a safe distance, 4 4 and I thought 
maybe there 'd been an accident.” 

4 4 Well, there ain't been no accident yet, 
young feller,” responded the inmate, 44 but 
there's likely to be one if you keep meddling 
with things that ain’t no business of yours.” 

4 4 No harm done,” said Yates, and then trying 
to smooth things out he continued, 4 4 You see 
I'm a reporter and I thought maybe there was 
a story in this car.” 

To his astonishment the man seemed to be 
panicstricken by his words. 

4 4 Reporter !'' he shouted, clambering over 


A CLUE IN THE NIGHT 


55 


the back of the seat to the driver’s place. 
“Well, if you don’t get out of this pretty quick 
you’ll be ,a dead reporter.” And thereupon 
pressing the accelerator and throwing off his 
brake he sped away, leaving Yates staring after 
him. 

“Looks suspicious,” reflected that youth. 
“He doesn’t like reporters and if he had a 
tussle with Jimmy Holbrook I don’t blame him. 
Well, I’ve got the number of his car anyway. 
Wonder if I could get any line on what he was 
standing out here for.” 

So thinking he turned to the door of the tene- 
ment before which the car had stood. Within 
was the usual narrow hall, with a grimy stair- 
way leading up into darkness only slightly 
relieved by a few slender flames of gas. In the 
early morning all was silent, and though Yates 
stole steadily up to the top floor and back he 
heard nothing suspicious. With a sigh of 
relief he emerged, breathing in the fresh air 
in great gulps after the fetid atmosphere of 
the tenement. 

“Well, I’ll just remember this place, and try 
again when there’s some life in it,” he said to 
himself. “Now if I’m going to be sleuth 
around the garage and the bank later, I ’d better 
get a bit of sleep.” And puzzling over the 
little he had discovered he made his way home. 


CHAPTER Y 


IN' LITTLE ITALY 

Early morning found Phil on his way to 
Little Italy. There had been slender sleep for 
him during the night despite the late hour at 
which he had turned in. The task he had set 
himself so occupied his mind that it was with 
difficulty that he could stop planning long 
enough for slumber to overcome him. But in 
the brisk air of the winter’s morning he was 
soon as alert and eager as though he had had 
a regular plowboy’s sleep. 

“Now that I’ve tackled this job,” he said to 
himself, “How am I going about it! The 
first thing of course is to get solid with the 
people at the garage and look about a bit, and 
see if I can get hold of Mr. Holbrook’s copy.” 
Phil had too much respect for the missing star 
reporter often to call him “Jimmie.” 

“I might be .able to get some sort of a job 
in the shop if the fellow who gave me the phony 
envelope does not remember my face. I can 
drive a car, all right, and on a pinch could over- 
haul one. But I would not dare to ask that dago 
guy for a job. He’d be onto me in a minute. 


IN LITTLE ITALY 


57 


Then I suppose some of the reporters from the 
office will be snooping 1 around there, and if they 
recognized me it would be all off. But in some 
way Pve just got to get into that garage, and 
get in to-day before they clean out all their 
waste paper.’ ’ 

Pondering over his problem he climbed the 
elevated railway stairs and set out on the 
northward trip. From the car window he 
looked down upon streets that, so far as their 
denizens were concerned, might have been slices 
taken from Naples or from Genoa. In the chill 
winter sunshine the people of the tenements 
thronged the streets, the curbs of which were 
lined with pushcarts piled high with vegetables, 
meat, fruits, scraps of bright cloth and all sorts 
of salable “notions.” The Italians who have 
come to our country have brought with them 
many of the habits of their early homes. They 
live out of doors much as they did in Italy and 
for much the same reason — their tenements 
being too crowded and squalid to make indoor 
life pleasant, and sunshine affording cheaper 
heat than coal at New York prices. It is cheap- 
ness too that keeps the pushcart market in 
operation, for with no rent to pay the small 
merchant wheels his petty,, stock from place to 
place and retails his goods free from what the 
business world calls “overhead charges.” In 


58 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

many sections of New York these curb markets 
give an air of European gaiety to the drab and 
monotonous streets in which they are main- 
tained. 

Descending from the elevated Phil began to 
formulate his plan of campaign. 

“I’ll sneak up to the corner opposite the 
garage,” he thought. “And see if the big 
fellow I saw the other day is on deck. I’d 
better keep an eye out for reporters too. Some 
of them might know me, and it would be difficult 
to explain^ what I am doing here. Now suppos- 
ing the man I saw is there again ! He ’d be al- 
most certain to recognize me, for he must know 
what a trick he played on me. But then, did 
he play the trick! How do I know that he knew 
what was in the envelope! But anyway I hope 
I’ll not run up against him for it would surely 
lead to trouble.” ' 

By this time Phil was near the spot where the 
garage stood. Pulling his hat over his eyes, 
and turning up his overcoat collar he took up a 
station on the corner diagonally across from 
it. Two men were working on ladders with 
some sort of a sign that they were trying to 
place over the door. Phil watched them with 
little interest. 

“Some new high mark for the price of gas,” 
he thought. 


IN LITTLE ITALY 59 

But just then the sign swung into place. It 
read 


THIS PLACE HAS CHANGED HANDS 


“And a good job, too!” thought Phil at first, 
as he recalled the trick that had been played 
The Blade by the retiring proprietors of the 
shop. But then he began to wonder just why 
the change, and the eagerness of the new peo- 
ple to make it known. 

Did it mean that the smiling Italian he had 
seen the night before had dropped out? If so 
it would be safe for him to go openly in and 
ask for a job. The sign gave him every excuse 
for doing it. A place in new hands should 
surely want some new workers. After recon- 
noitering carefully and assuring himself that his 
acquaintance of the night before was not visi- 
ble he crossed the street, and approached the 
office of the garage. Before entering he looked 
warily about him. There was no sign of his 
smiling but treacherous friend. Whether the 
two or three men loafing about had been part 
of the former staff Phil could not tell for he 
had noticed only the man who had been so in- 
sistent that he should hurry away. An alert 


60 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

young man, clearly an American, seemed now 
to be in charge. 

“Do you need any helpers ?” asked Phil ap- 
proaching this individual. 

“Well, only a handy man around the place, 
to clean up, wash cars and look out for people 
as they come in. You look pretty well dressed 
for that sort of work. Do you know anything 
about a car? Did you ever work in a garage? 

“I’ve got my best clothes on,” said Phil an- 
swering the first objection first. “You give 
me the job and I’ll dress for it. I’m not 
afraid of rough work. I can run a car, clean it, 
and know enough about an engine to fix up any 
ordinary trouble.” 

“All right. Hang up your coat and try to 
get this place cleaned up. I bought it last 
week from a couple of Italians, and they never 
cleaned an inch of it from the time they sold 
out until I took possession. Queer bunch they 
were too.” 

And the man turned away, grumbling. Phil 
wanted to ask why the former owners of the 
place were a queer bunch, but thought it un- 
wise to put any questions at the moment. Be- 
sides, cleaning up the shop was just the work 
he wanted. Perhaps he could find out where 
the waste paper was thrown, and in it might be 
Holbrook’s missing copy. Throwing off his 


IN LITTLE ITALY 


61 


coat and waistcoat he hunted a broom and 
went to work with a will. Hardly had he be- 
gun his task when he heard a familiar voice in 
the office and looking in saw Yates, The Blade’ s 
best reporter, at least best with Holbrook 
missing, deep in conversation with the man- 
ager of the garage. 

It was no part of Phil’s plan of action to let 
any of The Blade people know what he was do- 
ing on his brief leave of absence. Accordingly 
he took himself to the very back of the big ga- 
rage, and began working hard among the cars 
which shut him off from observation. He 
would have liked to know what information, if 
any, Yates was getting from the garage 
keeper, but after all that could wait. What- 
ever else Yates might find out about the case 
Phil did not want him to find out that he was 
working on it. So he kept in the shadow of 
the cars, and found plenty of dirt 'to keep him 
busy. 

“It wasn’t because of any fear that they 
might be brought up by the police because of 
the Holbrook matter that made the Italians 
quit last night,” he reflected. “For the boss 
says he bought the place a week ago. But the 
fact that they sold out then, shows that they 
had some scheme in mind that would compel 
them to leave the neighborhood. Wasn’t that 


62 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

scheme the blackmailing of Salvatore by Black- 
Hand methods ? Perhaps he stood out against 
all their threats, and they concluded they 
would have to make their bluff good by abduct- 
ing him. Then Jimmie came out here and got 
onto the story and these fellows learned in 
some way that he was on. When he came to 
rent a car from them what was easier for them 
than to put a trusty in the car and carry Jim 
off to some hiding place? 

“Jiminy crickets !” the excited boy almost 
shouted out loud. “I’ll bet they have Jim and 
Salvatore locked up in the same place. If I 
can find one I’ll find the other. Hello, sir! 
Yes, coming sir.” 

There had come a sharp call from the boss 
out in front. Laying aside his broom Phil 
went up for orders. He saw his employer 
eying a somewhat begrimed closed car with 
doubt; while he was protesting concerning its 
condition to a swarthy Italian who had evi- 
dently just brought it in. 

“Well, I don’t suppose there is anything to 
be done about it now,” he said, “but when I 
told Pietro that he could use a car on his last 
night I didn’t suppose he would keep it out all 
night, and bring it back looking as if it had 
been in a battle. What the dickens happened 
to you anyway? Look at that panel. Looks 


IN LITTLE ITALY 


63 


as if somebody had tried to kick it out. And 
one window is broken, and the linings all torn. 
Were yon fellows giving a red wine party 
down in Mulberry street in these days of pro- 
hibition! That ’s a nice looking car to bring 
back. I don’t believe it can be made to look 
decent without going to the shop for repairs.” 

Phil listened eagerly. Was this his clue! 
The man who had just brought the car in was 
an Italian. The car had been out all night, as 
the boss had said. It looked as if there had 
been a struggle in it. Before he could attempt 
to plan a course of conduct the boss told him 
sharply to take the car back into the garage, 
and see what he could do toward making it pre- 
sentable. Then the two men went into the of- 
fice. Before obeying orders Phil took a long 
look through the glass partition at the man 
who had brought in the car, that he might know 
him again in case of need. He was obviously 
an Italian, but not the man who had given Phil 
the envelope, nor had he been with the loungers 
about the shop when Phil had been there the 
night before. 

(Secure again in the back of the shop the boy 
began to take all cushions and other movable 
parts out of the interior of the car. It was the 
first work necessary for giving it a thorough 
cleaning. But Phil had something quite dif- 


64 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

ferent in his mind. He was now certain that 
in this car Holbrook had been carried off, and 
that he had not left it without a savage strug- 
gle. 

“Perhaps he dropped something in the 
fight,” thought Phil. “Perhaps even he left 
something purposely as a tracer, just as in the 
days of Indian warfare captives used to drop 
bits of paper, or break off twigs along the way 
so as to leave a trail for their rescuers.” 

Holbrook, if he had indeed been in the car, 
had not bethought himself of quite so romantic 
an expedient as all this. But nevertheless as 
Phil thrust his hand into every crevice in the 
upholstery, and under the floor covering he did 
find an article that proved that the missing re- 
porter had at some time been there. For 
wedged closely in between the edge of the seat 
and the body was a stump of a pencil bearing 
on it the name of The Blade — it being a not 
uncommon practice then for newspapers and 
other institutions using pencils in large quan- 
tities to have their names stamped upon them. 

It was evident now to the excited boy that 
the lost reporter had in fact been in this car, 
and that before leaving it there had been some 
sort of a fight. Not only was the window 
broken, but the upholstery was scratched as 
though whoever left that car had been dragged 


IN LITTLE ITALY 65 

out by main force while clinging to everything 
that would give a hold. 

“I'm getting close, ” said Phil to himself. 

But just how close was he? 

Holbrook had undoubtedly been in that car, 
and probably had been involved in some sort 
of a violent affray in it. But who were the 
other parties to the struggle? And where had 
they left the reporter? And above all, why 
had they kidnaped him at all? 

Phil was not so deep in his consideration of 
these problems but that he could see out of the 
corner of his eye that his new employer was 
looking in his direction. 

“Here, this won’t do,” he said to himself. 
“I don’t want to get bounced and I guess I’d 
better do my thinking without interrupting my 
work. But I’d like to know who the fellow 
was who brought the car back, and what hap- 
pened to it.” 

The chance for getting a line on these points 
came sooner than he expected, for while he was 
polishing the outside of the car and doing his 
best with a little wax to cover the scratches 
that marred it, the keeper of the garage came 
up to survey his work. 

“Nice trick those dagoes played me,” he 
said as he looked ruefully on the condition of 
the car. “That car was in perfectly good 


66 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

shape when I bought this place. It was all 
right yesterday afternoon. Pete, the fellow I 
bought the place from, told me he had a cus- 
tomer who might keep it late, maybe all night. 
My contract was to take over the place and all 
it contained at midnight, and he offered to pay 
for the time the car should be gone after that 
time. But I said no — we garage keepers 
might charge the public for everything and 
then some, but we mustn’t profiteer on each 
other. He was too foreign to see the joke but 
he was quick enough to understand that I 
wasn’t going to charge him anything. Now I 
guess he’s put the joke on me. That car might 
have been running on that road from Paris to 
Verdun where they smashed things up so dur- 
ing the war. I guess it will cost me $25 to get 
it into shape again.” 

“ Couldn’t you make the fellow who brought 
it back pay for it?” ventured Phil. His em- 
ployer seemed so talkative that he thought he 
might try to get a little information on the 
subject that was keeping the wheels of his 
mind whirling like a dynamo. 

‘ 4 What, him? Oh, he couldn’t pay for any- 
thing. He was just a driver for Bertelli, the 
Italian I bought this place from. Perhaps I 
might get something out of Bertelli if I could 
find him. But he’s many a good mile from 


IN LITTLE ITALY 


67 


here by now, and I don’t know in what direc- 
tion. There was something queer about that 
crowd of wops. They sold me this place for 
about half what the fixtures and stock were 
worth, and got nothing for the good will. 
They wouldn ’t take a check either, and I had to 
come up with the money in hundred dollar 
bills. When I took it over late last night I 
asked Pietro what would be his address if any 
mail came or anybody asked for him. He just 
grinned. 

“ ‘No address,’ he said. ‘Nobody want me — 
I want nobody. Go away early in morning. 
Go back Italy soon, week or two. No matter 
where I ’ll be till then. Tell anybody I ’m dead. ’ 

“Well, it was no business of mine. I got a 
bill of sale that protects me against any credi- 
tors, and if the police want him why they’ll 
have to do their own findings. And by the 
way, I wonder if the police won’t be looking 
for that bunch?” 

His face grew thoughtful. Phil watched 
him eagerly. Perhaps what he had in mind 
would have some bearing on his own great 
problem. 

“You saw that fellow talking with me just 
before this car was brought in?” continued 
Giddings. “Well, he is a reporter. He was 
looking for Bertelli. Seemed to think he might 


68 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

know something about the disappearance of an 
Italian banker of this neighborhood, and was 
much disappointed when I told him Bertelli 
had disappeared too. He wanted to know if I 
had rented out any car late last night, and By 
George! I forgot all about this one that had 
been rented before I took hold. He asked all 
sorts of questions about Bertelli, his habits 
and his friends, but I couldn’t give him any 
satisfaction. 

“The place was advertised for sale one day 
last week. I came to look it over and the 
bunch were so eager to sell that I couldn’t get 
away until I’d signed papers and made a de- 
posit. Then last night, just before twelve, I 
came in and took possession and Pietro quit. 
There does seem something queer about the 
rush he was in to get away, and now that car 
coming back in the shape it is in looks as if 
there had been some sort of crookedness afoot. 
I wonder if they carried off the banker in that 
car? I’ve a good mind to telephone the paper 
and tell that reporter about it.” 

This was exactly what Phil at that moment 
did not want done. Quick as a flash he saw the 
way to delay any such action. 

“No, it couldn’t have been the banker,” he 
said, “for you say that the car was rented 
about eleven last night, and Salvatore’s disap- 


IN LITTLE ITALY 


69 


pearance was told in the afternoon papers. 
Those fellows may have been mixed np in it 
however, and got a lot of money out of the 
banker, and been on some sort of a spree in 
which the car got pounded np. Anyway the 
reporter will probably be back in here if he 
keeps on investigating the story.” 

“Yep. I guess you’re right,” responded 
the other, and went back to the office. Phil 
turned again to his work. 

The car was by now in pretty good shape, 
except for the broken window, and as Phil re- 
placed the cushions and floor cloths he felt that 
it was unlikely that any other clue to its miss- 
ing passenger could be concealed in it. The 
pencil found had satisfied him that Holbrook 
had been in the car, and the thoroughness of 
his search left him no hope that the missing 
copy was to be found there. So he hurried to 
get through with that job that he might go 
through the waste paper that was piled up in a 
corner of the disorderly and neglected garage. 
Betaking himself to that corner Phil now be- 
gan smoothing out and piling up the paper 
with a view to making it into neat bundles that 
might be sold to the junkman. Most of it was 
old newspapers, or coarse wrapping paper in 
which supplies had come for the shop. All the 
time he worked Phil was on the alert for the 


70 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

gleam of white copy paper, the sort which a 
newspaper man would have used. He unfolded 
and straightened out every pile of crumpled 
newspaper or brown paper until he was getting 
near the bottom] of the pile. 

“Wonder if they burned it up ?” he thought. 
“But that’s not likely. A man like Bertelli 
would not be apt to think a bit of newspaper 
copy very important. But hello! What’s 
that?” 

In pulling to pieces the pile of waste paper 
he had uncovered an ash can, half filled. From 
the top of the ashes protruded the corner of a 
sheet of white paper. Perhaps Bertelli had 
intended that Holbrook’s story should go to 
the furnace after all. Carefully excavating 
Phil exhumed from the ashes a crumpled bun- 
dle of white paper covered with writing. It 
had clearly been folded to go into an envelope, 
and some one had tom it straight down each of 
the two folds. Stealthily Phil thrust it into 
his pocket hardly daring to look at it. He 
could not empty the ash can, as it was ready 
for the collector of ashes, but wheeling it into 
a corner where he could not be observed, he 
rolled up his sleeves to the shoulder and thrust 
his arms into the ashes, twisting and groping 
with his hands until he was convinced that 
there was no more paper concealed. Then he 


IN LITTLE ITALY 71 

put the can back in place and went on with his 
work. 

He was convinced that the manuscript he 
had thrust in his pocket was the missing copy 
of the lost reporter. But at the moment he 
did not dare to stop his work to make a careful 
examination. It was drawing near nightfall, 
he had been interrupted in his work several 
times, and the boss had a right to expect that 
the cleaning job would be finished before he 
quit for dinner. So with his brain awhirl 
Phil plied mop and broom and shovel until he 
began to see the end of his work ahead. Gid- 
dings, the new owner, had gone out in front of 
the garage to look over a car with a customer, 
and Phil thought he might at least steal a 
glance at his treasure. Slipping it out of his 
pocket he smoothed it out. 

It was clearly newspaper copy, but what was 
at the moment most important was a note ad- 
dressed to the editor on the first sheet, after the 
fashion of reporters when sending a story 
from a distance they wish to call the attention 
of the office to some matter not directly con- 
nected with the stuff to be printed. 

In this case a corner had been torn from the 
sheet so that part of the message was wanting, 
but Phil was able to read in the badly blurred 
pencil writing this much: 


72 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

“For Mr. Bowers — Here is Salvatore story 
as far as I can get it for first edition. Think 
I am on trail of man. He is not leaving 
country, but is a prisoner. Hope to find him 
to-night. Will phone you misleading message 
as I don’t want the wops around here to think 
I’m on. Will not go to dock, but shall leave 
car at er str and look into ce , ut 
rry. ’ ’ 

There it ended. Many of the words toward 
the end of the note were so blurred that only 
one or two letters could be made out, and so 
large a piece had been torn from the corner of 
the sheet that it was possible that fifteen or 
twenty words had been thus obliterated, al- 
though it might have been but one or two. 

‘ * Glee ! ’ ’ said Phil to himself. ‘ ‘ It looks as if 
I had a cipher to work out when I get done my 
job here.” 


CHAPTER VI 


THE NEWSPAPER COUNCIL OF WAR 

4 ‘What about your lost reporter, Bowers V 9 

The speaker was Sidney Perkins, managing' 
editor of The Blade . The editorial council was 
in session on the afternoon after the disap- 
pearance of Holbrook, and the staff was get- 
ting ready to concentrate its effort on the 
solution of that mystery. 

In most large city newspapers there is held 
every afternoon a council of the principal edi- 
torial executives. It is usually convened about 
5 : 30, the time at which the day staff retires to 
leave the conduct of the paper to the night men. 
Ordinarily there are present the managing 
editor, and night editor, the city editor, and 
night city editor, the head telegraph editor and 
sometimes the editor in chief. 

The topics discussed cover a wide range. In ' 
some papers the council is made the occasion 
of a careful comparison of that day’s edition 
with that of its rivals with a view to determin- 
ing whether there has been any marked superi- 
ority in any one of them. 

In the offices of a number of newspapers 

73 


74 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

published under one ownership is displayed 
this notice: 

“Please sum up your paper every day at the 
evening conference and find out wherein it is 
distinctly better than the other papers . If it 
isn’t distinctly better you have missed that day . 
Lay out plans to make it distinctly better the 
next day. If you cannot show conclusively 
your own paper’s superiority , you may be sure 
the public will never discover it 1 .” 

At a conference of this nature the next morn- 
ing’s paper can, as a rule, be laid out, although 
of course some sensational occurrence, late at 
night, may spoil the whole lay-out. But ordin- 
arily the city editor is able to tell with reason- 
able accuracy what will be his big stories for 
the night. The telegraph editor is able to fore- 
cast the importance of news coming over the 
wires from Washington, and other distant 
news centers, and the essential features of the 
department news, such as sports, society and 
the stock market are fairly well known. 

After the managing editor has indicated the 
manner of treatment of the various news fea- 
tures all sorts of topics connected with the 
paper come up for discussion. At this meeting 
naturally everybody was alert for the subject 
of the missing reporter. Bowers told the 


NEWSPAPER COUNCIL OF WAR 75 


story as far as it had gone, and produced the 
scrap of paper bearing the sketch of the Black 
Hand. 

“I got hold of Yates early this morning and 
he is on the ground trying to find the man who 
drove the car that Holbrook went off in,” he 
said. 4 ‘But he phoned me about noon that the 
garage had been transferred to new owners at 
midnight last night, and that the new man 
claims to know nothing about the fellows that 
quit. The new owners are Americans, and it 
looks to me rather suspicious that the Italians 
should have sold out so suddenly after this 
story broke, and made themselves scarce. 
There is some connection between their action, 
the disappearance of Salvatore and the vanish- 
ing of Holbrook. We have got to unravel the 
connection. If you don’t mind, Mr. Perkins, 
I’d like to hold the thing away from the police 
for a few days. If we make the slightest ap- 
plication to them for aid the other papers will 
get in on the story. I believe we can work it 
out in our way. ’ ’ 

“Well, that’s all right from the standpoint 
of the paper,” responded Perkins, “But what 
about our reporter ? You know as well as I do 
that the Black Hand gang are a murderous 
lot. If they thought our search for Jim was 
going to lead to the discovery of their main 


76 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

works they might put a knife in him, or drop 
him off a dock. It's all right to nurse a news 
story, but we can’t entirely ignore the danger 
to our reporter.” 

“You don’t know Jimmie,” said Bowers 
with a laugh. “If he could pass on this ques- 
tion right now he’d say ‘For the Lord’s sake 
keep out of this and let me run it. I’ll risk 
the wops, and I’ll bring back a story that will 
make the World and the American turn yel- 
lower than ever with envy.’ That would be 
about his attitude. That boy will take care of 
himself anywhere, and if that bunch of kid- 
napers won’t wish they had abducted a griz- 
zly or a devil-fish in place of Jim I’ll miss my 
guess.” 

“Well, if you are sure about it have it your 
own way. But I suppose you are not trusting 
wholly to Jim’s escape with the story. What 
are you doing at this end?” 

“The story,” responded the city editor, 
“naturally divides into two parts — the disap- 
pearance of Salvatore, and the subsequent ab- 
duction — as we suppose — of Holbrook. 

“Now the Salvatore case involves his busi- 
ness, his family, and the possible part that 
Black Handers may have played in it. Yates 
is out on the business end. [He will interview 
the one clerk in the bank and get a full state- 


NEWSPAPER COUNCIL OF WAR 77 


ment of its condition, supplementing this with 
a story from the bank in which Salvatore kept 
his money. You know that in a financial way 
these little neighborhood banks, catering to a 
distinct nationality, don’t amount to much. 
Salvatore had perhaps $200,000 on deposit, and 
never had a cash reserve in his vault of over 
$10,000. He did business with the Brookside 
National that cleared for him, and advised him 
on loans and divestments. We have a full 
statement from them, showing him to have 
been a methodical and trustworthy man. His 
account with them was perfectly good, and the 
confidence he had established was such that 
they saw his bank through the little run of the 
last three days which followed the discovery of 
his disappearance. 

“Now as to his wife. Yates saw her this 
morning, and tells me over the phone that he 
doesn’t quite know what to make of her. He 
is confident that she is hiding something she 
knows, but whether to protect her husband from 
publicity, or because she is in terror of some 
secret danger he cannot be sure. She is an 
Italian, little affected as yet by her residence 
here, and has all the nervous excitable manner 
of the Latins. 

“iShe tells Yates that a man who, from her 
description, must have been Holbrook, fright- 


78 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

ened her yesterday by asking all sorts of ques- 
tions about her Toni. She thought he was an 
enemy trying to find Toni to put him in prison. 
So she wouldn’t tell him much. As a matter 
of fact Yates doesn’t think she knows much to 
tell. She did say though that her Toni kept 
getting letters that seemed to worry him much. 
Whenever he opened one, she said, he would 
stamp his foot and pound the table with his fist, 
and swear — Holy Mother ! How he would 
swear. One day he showed one of these letters 
to Pietro who kept the garage. Pietro looked 
very grave, and seemed to be trying to get 
Toni to do something that he did not want to 
do. In a few minutes the two men went over 
to the garage and Toni stayed there a long 
time. Right in the middle of the day, too, and 
Toni never left his bank during business hours. 
He was so careful. But he stayed away a long 
time that day and when he came back he was 
so gloomy — even melancholy, and could not 
eat the fine ravioli she had for his luncheon. 

‘ ‘ Yates says she is confident that no domestic 
troubles led to Salvatore’s disappearance. 
His wife seems prodigiously proud of him, and 
inclined to boast of his greatness, after the 
Italian fashion. Thinks he is a banker after 
the Pierpont Morgan type, and is worried for 


NEWSPAPER COUNCIL OF WAR 79 


fear that envious rivals are plotting against 
him. 

‘ 4 After getting all he could out of the wife 
Yates went over to the garage and — ” 

6 ‘ Hold on,” interposed Perkins, “Did he try 
to get any of those fetters that had bothered 
Salvatore so much?” 

“Yes, he tried, but the woman said that the 
only ones he opened in her presence he burned 
at once as if he was afraid to have them on him. 
What he did with the one he took over to the 
garage she couldn’t say.” 

“All right. Go ahead.” 

“Well, all Yates could learn at the garage 
was that the man now in possession — fellow 
named Giddings — bought it a week ago as the 
result of an ad. He says the wops turned over 
possession to him at midnight, and left no word 
as to where they were going. He is a little 
suspicious that there was something that made 
them fear the police, for they were so anxious 
to get away that they sold him the place for 
half what it is worth. He’s promised Yates 
to keep him posted if anybody comes to inquire 
after them, or if they themselves turn up.” 

“This Salvatore woman? Where does she 
live?” 

“In a typical Italian tenement up above the 


80 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

bank. Has two children, one a girl of about 
seventeen ; the other a young boy. ’ 9 

“And that’s every bit of information we 
have?” 

“That’s all.” 

“Hum. The story certainly is much up in 
the air. Well, it’s your business to get it. 
Handle it your own way. But I think if you 
haven ’t cleared it all up by -Sunday — this is 
Friday — you’d better put the matter in the 
hands of the police. I hate to ruin a possible 
exclusive, but we must not leave Holbrook with- 
out help too long. Now as to the local end of 
that Washington story — ” 

And in a moment the attention of the confer- 
ence was diverted to other news features, and 
the plight of Jimmie Holbrook was forgotten. 
But not for long. In the midst of the discus- 
sion Bowers’ assistant called him quietly away, 
and his voice was almost immediately heard at 
the telephone in the adjoining city room.” 

“Hello. Yes. This is Bowers, city editor 
of The Blade. Yes. Holbrook? Yes. He’s 
our man, what about him? What do you mean? 
Who are you anyway? No, of course we will 
not promise anything to a person we don’t 
know, calling up from an unknown number. 
Oh, I guess The Blade knows how to take care 
of its own people. Why don’t you come in and 


NEWSPAPER COUNCIL OF WAR 81 


see me about it, or give me your address and 
I’ll send a man up? What’s that? A warn- 
ing? Don’t make any threats. Hello! Hello! 
Hello ! Oh, Central, can you tell me what num- 
ber just called me? You can’t? It was a pay 
booth somewhere in Manhattan. All right.” 

And hanging up the receiver with a bang 
Bowers rushed back to the conference which 
he found eagerly awaiting his report of the con- 
versation of which only one side was audible. 

“What do you think of it?” he exclaimed. 
“That was some one who claims to know 
where Holbrook is, and is trying to bluff the 
paper.” 

“How so?” asked Perkins composedly. 
“Give us the details.” 

“Baxter just called me to the phone saying 
there was some one on it who had my name and 
would not talk with anybody but me. When 
I got there the fellow at the other end — who 
had a strong foreign accent — wanted to know 
if a man named Holbrook was with The Blade . 
[When I said yes he said that Holbrook was in 
serious trouble and could not come to the wire 
himself but wanted to ask me not to print any- 
thing about him or about the Salvatore case. 
I demanded to know who was talking, and the 
fellow refused to say, but went on to warn me 
that Holbrook was in a position where great 


82 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

harm would come to him if the paper gave any 
publicity to the facts which Holbrook had ob- 
tained. ’ ’ 

“Wait a minute,” interrupted Perkins, “Did 
he put it in that way? Did he talk as if he 
knew that Holbrook had been investigating 
some case, and that we were in possession of 
the facts that he had gathered ?” 

“He certainly did.” 

“Well, then, that shows that whoever called 
you up did not know that Jimmie’s copy had 
been taken from that envelope, or else Jim 
has made him believe that he had sent the sub- 
stance of the story 1 to us in some other way. It 
indicates that while they have Jimmie, they 
think we have the story, and are trying to 
bluff us into silence by threats against him. 
But what else did he say?” 

“He lost his temper when I said we would 
not make promises that way, and he swore if 
we didn’t we’d never see our reporter again, 
and would not like to know what had been done 
to him. I warned him not to make 1 any threats, 
and he ended up by saying that this was the 
last warning, and if I wanted to know who it 
was from it was sent by the Black Hand. 
Then I got mad but was cut off almost in- 
stantly. Central says it was a call from some- 
where in Manhattan. That’s the story.” 


NEWSPAPER COUNCIL OF WAR 83 


And Bowers sat back in his chair, crumpled 
his old straw hat, and nursed the wrath the 
unknown messenger of menace had aroused. 

“You are still confident of Jimmie’s ability 
to take care of himself?” asked Perkins. 

“Never more than now. He’s made that fel- 
low think we know all about what has been done 
with Salvatore and who did it, and they are 
probably scared to death now lest we bring a 
police raid down upon them.” 

“Then what do you propose doing?” 

“Well, when a man warns me not to print a 
thing, I usually want to print it right away, 
and make it twice as offensive to him as had 
been planned. But this case is different. We 
really haven’t anything to print. We don’t 
know what became of Jimmie’s copy, whatever 
he may have made the man think about it. 
But if we don’t print anything that fellow will 
think he has scared us out, and that I don’t 
like. ’ ’ 

“Wouldn’t that be just the best thing to 
have him think?” put in Perkins. “If he sees 
the paper to-morrow with not a word in it he 
will probably think he has us scared and will 
come up with some other proposition, which 
will give us another chance to nab him. Better 
make a virtue of a necessity since we really 
haven’t anything to say, and keep silence.” 


84 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

“Well, I suppose that’s true,” responded 
Bowers grudgingly, “but I’d like to be able to 
print the news that we bad that bullying ruffian 
who called me on the phone behind the bars. I 
have one consolation however. We will get 
them yet, and in the meantime I ’m certain that 
any Black Hander that got Jimmie Holbrook 
got a pair of black eyes for himself.” 


CHAPTER VII 


THREADING A MAZE 

Secure in his own lodging that night Phil 
took ont the roll of paper at which he had 
snatched hasty glances during the day and be- 
gan to study it with care. It was a straight- 
away, clean-cut story of the sort which Hol- 
brook knew so well how to write. The essen- 
tials of the whole story were in the first para- 
graph. 

There was no exaggeration of statement or 
of literary manner — not the slightest effort 
at fine writing. The reporter had a story to 
tell, told it and stopped. Little was left for the 
men on the copy desk to do. They are the edi- 
torial workers — most of whom have been re- 
porters in their day — who read over ‘the stories 
turned in by the reporters, correct their 
English and punctuation if that be necessary, 
cut them to the space the city editor indicates, 
or expand and rewrite them if the original 
writer has failed to make the most of his sub- 
ject, and write over them suitable headlines. 
They scan each article narrowly for any state- 

85 


86 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

ment that may be libelous, and if there appears 
to be anything that suggests inaccuracy in the 
reporter 's story use every endeavor to corrob- 
orate each statement of fact. 

The copy readers' work is perhaps the most 
trying of any detail on a newspaper. Usually 
they are veterans of the profession who for 
one reason or another have had to abandon the 
more active out-of-door work of the reporter, 
but they must retain their “nose for news," 
their instinctive scent for inaccuracy, and 
their appreciation of a good story. They are 
responsible for the headings put on articles, 
and to a great extent for the measure of dis- 
play accorded them. A “strong copy desk" 
will go further toward making a uniformly 
good paper than almost any single element in 
its staff. It cannot be said however that this 
fact is generally appreciated by newspaper 
managers, and as a result the copy desk is sel- 
dom sought by those having the force and the 
ability to do outside work. On a large city 
paper there will be from eight to twelve men 
on the copy desk, and their work, beginning 
about 6.30 f.m. lasts through the night. 

In the offices of the great organization of 
newspapers already quoted a list of in- 
structions for reporters and copy readers is 
posted, some parts of which will show the rules, 


THREADING A MAZE 87 

observance of which had helped to make Jim- 
mie Holbrook into a star reporter : 

“ Make a paper for the nicest hind of people 
— for the great middle class. Don’t print a 
lot of dull stuff that they are supposed to like 
and don’t. 

(( Omit things that will offend nice people. 
Avoid coarseness and slang and a low tone. 
The most sensational news can be told if it is 
written properly. 

“Talk as a gentleman should. Be reliable 
in all things as well as entertaining and ami- 
able. 

When a wrong picture is brought in by a 
reporter , or a wrong picture is used, through 
lack of care or neglect; or when grossly in- 
accurate statements are made by a reporter 
or copy writer, such reader or reporter will 
be asked for his immediate resignation. 

“Do not exaggerate. Care must be taken to 
state accurately the truth. If an $800,000 
transaction is described do not call it a mil- 
lion dollar transaction. If someone dies leav- 
ing two million, do not say he left ten million. 

“Make the paper helpful and kindly. Don’t 
scold and forever complain and attack in your 
news columns. Leave that to the editorial 
page. 


88 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

“Be fair and impartial . Don’t make a paper 
for Democrats or Republicans or Independent 
Leaguers. Make a paper for all the people and 
give unbiased news of all creeds and parties. 
Try to do this in such a conspicuous manner 
that it will be noticed and commented upon . 

“Please be accurate . Compare statements 
in your paper with those in other papers and 
find out which is correct. Discharge reporters 
and copy readers who are persistently in- 
accurate. 

“Don’t allow exaggeration. It is a cheap 
and ineffective substitute for real interest. 
Reward reporters who can make the truth in- 
teresting, and weed out those who cannot.” 

Holbrook’s copy as Phil studied it complied 
with all these requirements. It was incomplete 
of course, being intended only as the intro- 
duction to the more sensational story which 
the reporter had hoped to get when he rented 
the car and started for his unknown destination. 
This was the story Phil read and laid aside 
with regrets that the writer could not have set 
down just one more fact — namely the spot he 
headed for when he left his copy with the keeper 
of the garage: 

4 4 Antonio Salvatore’s Banca d’ltaliana at 
247 East 163rd. St. is closed. Antonio is miss- 


THREADING A MAZE 


89 


in g. His Italian neighbors and depositors 
discovered both facts three days ago, and 
started a run on the bank fearing that their 
deposits were missing with Toni. But in 24 
hours it was demonstrated that the bank was 
perfectly sound, and that the missing banker 
had converted none of its assets to his own use. 
The Brookside National Bank, with which he 
carried his reserves, made an investigation, 
assured itself of the soundness of the institu- 
tion, and sent one of its men over to assist the 
man whom Salvatore employed as cashier, 
teller, and bookkeeper in meeting the run. 
This action restored confidence and yesterday, 
the third day of the run, as much money was 
deposited as was drawn out. 

“But Antonio is still missing. In the snug 
apartment above the bank Mrs. Salvatore sits 
surrounded by sympathetic friends and tells 
the little she knows about her husband’s disap- 
pearance. 

“ ‘He was always a good family man,’ she 
says. i Do not these beautiful rooms with all 
those lovely pictures of the saints show it? 
And his children — two of them — he was devoted 
to them. Always taking the boy, Little Luigi, 
to the pictures, and the girl — Ah, she was 
^older, she was seventeen now and had others to 
take her to the pictures. But they were de- 


90 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

voted to their papa, and desolate because he 
had gone away. 

“ ‘It was frightful the first day he was away. 
Ah, those neighbors ! How quick they were to 
imagine the worst about him. They came run- 
ning to the doors of the bank, pushing each 
other out of the way, crying aloud for their 
money and calling Toni — my Toni — a thief. 
Of course the money was there. I knew all 
the time it would be. If I had my way Carlo, 
the cashier, would not be taking any of it back 
now those beggers were pleading with him to 
do so. 

“ ‘Why did he go away? Ah, signor, if I 
but knew. Figure it for yourself. He was al- 
ways a home man. He liked to be with me and 
to go out with his daughter and the boy. His 
bank was all right. He had taken no money 
not even from his own account. What could 
he have gone for?’ 

“The clerk in the little bank who serves as 
cashier, teller, bookkeeper and janitor seems 
devoted to his missing boss. Whether he is 
the more distressed over his absence, or more 
proud that the bank has been shown to be in 
excellent shape and its head freed from the 
slightest suspicion of dishonesty is difficult to 
tell. But he has a theory as to the reasons for 
the flight w T hich he sets forth with many shrugs 


THREADING A MAZE 


91 


of the shoulder, whisperings, and dark and ob- 
scure hints of things he dare not tell. It ap- 
pears that for some weeks past Salvatore had 
been getting letters which clearly distressed 
him but which he showed to no one. At first 
they came only semi-occasionally, but in the 
last week before his disappearance one came 
in each mail. His clerk was easily able to rec- 
ognize these missives by the coarse grade of 
envelopes used, and the rudely scrawled ad- 
dress. At first they had not seemed to worry 
the banker much, although he carefully burned 
each one after glancing at it. But latterly he 
had seemed to be enraged, and sometimes terri- 
fied, by the steady persistence with which they 
came day after day. The last one that came 
before his disappearance he tore into small 
fragments instead of burning it as had been 
his custom, and threw it into the basket by his 
desk. When he failed to appear the next morn- 
ing the clerk took the torn scraps and pieced 
them together. 

“ ‘Ah, Signor,’ said the clerk, lowering his 
voice and looking fearfully about as though 
suspecting some lurking listener, ‘there was no 
writing but only a drawing of a Black Hand. 
It is the sign of the Mafia, the terrible bandits 
of my own country. I fear they have taken 
Signor Salvatore and are holding him for ran- 


92 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

som. Or perhaps he may have threatened to 
betray them. If so they kill him with knife, 
or throw him in river. They are terrible 
people, and it is better to do as they demand. 
But the Signor was always so bold and so sure 
of himself. He defy them and now where is 
her 

“That is the general question in Little Italy 
— 4 Where is Salvatore V Some group of men 
knows all about it, but the Mafia keeps its own 
counsel, and the family of the missing man fear 
the worst.” 

That was the end of the story as written by 
Holbrook, but the note to the editor with which 
he prefaced it indicated that he had expected 
to add some details after his trip to the part of 
the city which he had named in that almost 
illegible communication. Phil sat and studied 
the story and the note thoughtfully. 

‘ 4 1 wonder if I ought to take this down to the 
office ?” he said to himself. “Jimmie wrote it 
for the paper, and it belongs to The Blade . 
But it doesn’t tell anything that they haven’t 
got already. Bob Yates has been working on 
the case all day, and has seen the same people 
that Jim did. This copy won ’t be of any advan- 
tage to them now. 

“But the note to Mr. Bowers? Well, that’s 
different. Let’s study that a little.” 


THREADING A MAZE 


93 


And laying the crumpled paper out smooth 
he began a diligent scrutiny of the blurred 
words as if he hoped to read something between 
the lines. 

“Now the first part of that is clear enough. 
Jim wanted the man where he phoned to think 
he believed that Salvatore had skipped and 
was probably on that Italian ship that sailed 
last night. So he phoned the office to that 
effect, using some public phone where every- 
body might hear. Then he rented a car and 
probably told the driver to take him to the 
dock, intending to slip out somewhere down 
town and make an excuse for not going the 
whole way. All that seems reasonable enough, 
though if Jim was so shy of the garage man he 
ought to have been wiser than to leave his copy 
there for me. Perhaps he thought the boss 
was all right, and was only suspicious of the 
driver he took along. 

“However that’s not the important thing 
now. What do these blurred words mean? If 
I could figure them out I would have an idea at 
least of where Jimmie started for. I’ll just 
copy them out and put the original away where 
it won’t get rubbed any worse than it is. 


‘ 4 i WILL. NOT GO TO DOCK BUT SHALL LEAVE CAR 
ER STR AND LOOK INTO CE UT RRY’ 


AT 


AND LOOK INTO CE 


94 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

“That’s the end of it and it’s some cipher. 
Judging from the way the paper is torn there 
could not have been room for more than ten or 
twelve letters after ‘rry.’ ” 

And again Phil plunged into a brown study. 

In a moment his face lighted up. 

“Well, I can get something out of the end of 
it anyway. That ‘rry’ is probably the last syl- 
lable of Mulberry Street. I think that runs 
through the downtown Jittle Italy, and it is 
likely that Jim thought he might get a line on 
the missing man down in the bunch of tene- 
ments and little shops. That seems reason- 
able. Let’s call that word ‘Mulberry.’ 

“Now whait comes before it. — ‘ITT’ Well 
that doesn’t suggest much to me. It is so 
close to the word ‘Mulberry’ however that 
there is no room for anything between them. 
So it is probably the end of a longer word. 
How long a word? 

“Well, if that ‘ce’ before it is the end of a 
word there is just about room for three or 
four letters. Let’s think now.” 

“A word of five or six letters ending in ‘ut.’ 
There’s ‘shout.’ But that wouldn’t make any 
sense. Nobody’s shouting in this case. It’s 
only too quiet. ‘Spout? Snout? Krout?’ — 
this is a wop case, not a Dutchman’s. ‘Flout?’ 
Nothing doing. Gee, I wish I had a rhyming 


THREADING A MAZE 


95 


dictionary. What other words end that way? 
That’s about all — Golly, there’s ‘about!’ 
That might work : ‘About Mulberry. ’ That is 
he was going to leave the car about there. 
Aha, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I’m getting into 
your class. 

“Well, let’s keep on. What word is it that 
ended with that ‘er?’ That’s not so easy. I 
wonder if there is any street crossing Mul- 
berry with a name ending in ‘er’? There’s 
‘Doyer’ but that’s too far south. I can’t re- 
member many of the names down there, though 
I’ve chased through that region often enough 
to find reporters and get their copy. How 
late is it? I believe I’ll take a run down there 
now. 

“But first let’s take another look at the ci- 
pher. That first ‘str — ’ undoubtedly means 
‘street.’ So the stuff as far as I can make it 
out would read,, 

“ ‘Will not go to dock but shall leave car 
about — er street and look into — ce about Mul- 
berry. ’ 

“There’s space for a name before the word 
‘street,’ and for several letters, more than a 
single word, before that darned ‘ — ce.’ Won- 
der if that last might not stand for ‘place.’ It 
might mean that he was going to drop 
into somebody’s place about Mulberry Street. 


96 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

There are places enough around there of every 
kind, Heaven knows. Well I’m not doing so 
bad with my indoor detective work, but I think 
I ? 11 go and have a look over what the papers 
call the scene of the crime.’ ’ 

So putting on his overcoat Phil headed for 
the subway. All the way downtown he racked 
his brains for words ending in “ce” for he was 
not more than half satisfied with “ place” for 
the missing word, and still in doubt as to the 
other street. At Astor Place he left the car 
and turning southward plunged into the densely 
populated section of New York’s East Side. 

It was not precisely another Little Italy into 
which he now entered. Rather was it reminis- 
cent of the clatter of tongues at the Tower of 
Babel. At one time given over almost wholly 
to the Irish who formed the bulk of our immi- 
grants prior to the Civil War, this region 
changed its dominant nationality every ten 
years. The Germans first crowded out the 
Irish, and they in turn fled before the advanc- 
ing hordes of the Italians. In each instance 
it was the nationality that was willing to live 
in a little worse quarters, with a little more 
overcrowding and with more squalor which 
gradually elbowed out its predecessors. The 
Italians, used in their home cities to crowded 
quarters that made the worst of our tenements 


THREADING A MAZE 


97 


seem roomy to them and accustomed to life on 
the sidewalk when their rooms were either too 
hot or too cold, found what seemed to them 
comfort in tenements against which the Irish- 
man rebelled, and which the German endured 
only until he could do better. 

But our Italian citizens were not long left 
to have it their own way. Before long Rou- 
manians and Albanians, Poles and above all 
Russians began coming in by the tens of thou- 
sands from countries that had not been able to 
support them even in abject squalor. They 
were willing enough to crowd eight in a room 
which would house but two Irishmen or four 
Germans. Landlords, nothing loth, raised the 
rates to accord with the additional numbers 
the tenement would hold, and the Italians like 
the Germans and the Irish before them moved 
up town where the crowding was not so great 
— though to the eyes of one used to the ways 
of the smaller American towns they seem 
packed in even there like matches in a box, 
and with equally great chances for an ex- 
plosion. 

The streets which Phil was now treading 
that winter ’s evening were lined on either side 
with four and five story buildings, the ground 
floors and area ways of which had been made 
into shops while up above two and four room 


98 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

flats housed swarming multitudes. It is prob- 
ably the most densely populated quarter in the 
known world, for while some of the swarming 
sections of Asiatic, and especially East Indian, 
towns give the impression of greater conges- 
tion their hovels are but of two or three stories 
while in this imperial city of the United States 
the tenements rise to a height of five stories 
and are filled with people, sometimes six or 
more to a room. 

The shops below, particularly those furnish- 
ing food for the quarter, have a strange and 
foreign look. Curious cheeses, some green 
and grey with clinging mold, some packed into 
bladders and taking the shape of their con- 
tainers, all exceedingly odoriferous with a 
fragance which only a trained nose can either 
appreciate or endure, make up the entire stock 
of many stores. Others are given over to 
spaghetti, macaroni and the ravioli dear to the 
Italian heart. Others display olive oil and 
strange exotic cakes of a sort to which the 
American eye is unaccustomed. The push 
carts in the streets offer fried fish in oil, big 
round fat chestnuts imported from Italy, gaily 
colored caps and neckerchiefs, glassware and 
crockery, nails and screws, books of the cheaper 
sort with a large assortment of “Nick Carter” 
done into Italian, ancient shoes cobbled for new 


THREADING A MAZE 


99 


users, and along the sidewalks stroll men with 
bundles of second-hand clothes over their arms 
with which they strive to tit possible pur- 
chasers among the passers-by. 

In the distinctively Italian quarter the push- 
cart market carries a higher type of wares than 
where the population includes the Russian and 
Balkan peoples. The display of goods to 
tempt the thrifty people of the more eastern 
states of Europe is one to amaze the American 
mind. The street market that centers at the 
corner of Rivington and Orchard streets is one 
not exceeded in picturesqueness by any in Po- 
land, or in the towns of Russia before the days 
of the soviets. Three miles at most from the 
brilliant shops of Fifth Avenue this section of 
Manhattan is as different from that which is 
visited by the ordinary up-town New Yorker 
as the ghetto of Posen is from the palaces of 
Paris. 

Innumerable coffee shops lined the streets on 
which Phil was watchfully walking, rooms 
glaring with yellow light and filled wlith tables 
at which sat men sipping coffee and talking, 
playing dominoes or reading foreign papers. 
Long before prohibition became the established 
law of the land these coffee shops flourished in 
this section of New York to the almost total ob- 
literation of the American saloon. For, al- 


100 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

though we are apt to think of foreigners as 
wine-lovers, the people of the Balkan states 
who furnish much of the population of this 
section of the metropolis are more devoted to 
their coffee and tea, and make of the little 
shops furnishing these harmless beverages the 
same sort of social meeting places that the 
saloons formerly were. 

‘ ‘ I wonder ’ ’ thought Phil as he walked along 
the street peering into one after another of 
these, “ whether one of these is not the place 
Jimmie was going to look into before calling 
up the office. They look like pretty good hunt- 
ing grounds for conspirators of any sort. So 
far however there are mighty few Italian joints 
observable, and this mystery is all drawn with 
a fine Italian hand. 

“But what a search for a needle in a hay- 
stack this is. I read in a magazine article the 
other day that some of the blocks in this district 
house eleven thousand people. What chance 
have I got of finding Jimmie in a human hive 
like that? If they grabbed and gagged him in 
that car, and carried him up into a back room 
of one of these tenements, or down into one of 
those cellars he couldn’t be found by a 
thousand police with search warrants. I’m 
certainly up against it, unless luck is on my side 


THREADING A MAZE 101 

as it was with Bob Yates the day he took that 
bath. 

And just at that moment Phil was scarcely 
able to repress a shout. Luck was clearly with 
him for a little way at least, for there in plain 
sight in one of the coffee shops, talking excit- 
edly and seemingly oblivious to all their sur- 
roundings were the smiling Italian who had 
owned the garage, and had given Phil the Black 
Hand missive, and the chauffeur who had 
brought back the damaged car that morning. 


CHAPTER VIII 


ON A SHARP SCENT 

Phil shrank back to the corner of the win- 
dow where he could view the interior of the 
room, without himself being visible in the dimly 
lighted street. There was no doubt about it. 
He had by lucky chance hit upon the only two 
men who could be at all under suspicion of 
having a hand in the disappearance of Jimmie 
Holbrook. 

But now he had found them, what was he 
to do? 

The problem perplexed Phil, and for a time 
he lost something of his self confidence, and 
wished that some of the more experienced re- 
porters were there to advise him. 

But of two things he was certain. He could 
not go into the cafe to confront the two 
Italians, for one of them at least would be 
likely to recognize him. Nor could he desert 
his observation post in search of help. If he 
did the quarry was pretty sure to get away, and 
Phil thought that in thus stumbling upon them 
he had all the luck he had a right to hope for 
in his case. 


102 


ON A SHARP SCENT 


103 


There was a big policeman sauntering down 
the block but Phil was mindful of the desire of 
Mr. Bowers to handle this matter without the 
aid of the police so he turned resolutely from 
that possible source of help. 

It was getting bitter cold in the street, and 
the crouching boy began to envy the two Ital- 
ians bent over the table, in the warm room 
with cups of fragrant coffee steaming between 
them. He danced a bit to keep the blood stir- 
ring in his veins, and seeng the stand of a ven- 
dor of roasted chestnuts near by made a hasty 
rush and bought a pocket full to warm him 
inside and out. But he was not cheerful at 
the thought of a long vigil. He thought the 
men looked so very comfortable that they were 
liable to sit for hours. 

“That big fellow with the grin,” said Phil 
to himself, “must be Pietro, for that was the 
name that Giddings gave to the man he bought 
the garage of. The other fellow is the one that 
brought back the car. I’ll bet they know ex- 
actly where Jim and Salvatore are. There’s 
nothing for me to do but hang around until 
they go out and then shadow them — if I don’t 
freeze first. Wish I had one of the fellows 
here to stand guard while I get some hot coffee. 
But there ’s no use of thinking of that. I won- 
der if I went in and took a seat in the back of 


104 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

the room they'd notice me? Might hear what 
they were saying too. But thunder! they'd 
talk in Italian so that won't work. I'll just 
have to stick it out here unless that cop comes 
and makes me move on." 

To avoid this complication which might read- 
ily happen to a person loitering on a street 
on a bitter cold winter's night with no visible 
purpose, Phil tried to move about as much and 
as far as possible without losing sight of the 
door whence the men he shadowed must 
emerge if they wanted to leave the cafe. Every 
three or four minutes he would pass directly 
in front of the window and look boldly in to 
assure himself that they were still there. 
Seemingly they were arguing rather heatedly 
about something, and once Phil saw Pietro 
bring down his fist on the table with a bang 
that set the little cups before them dancing. 

“■Getting hot about something," mused Phil. 
“Wish I was." 

“Oh, crickey! They're going to have sup- 
per. There's the waiter with a big plate of 
sandwiches. Can I stand it out here while 
they eat for another hour? But hold on. 
The waiter is taking the stuff away. Hello! 
He's making a bundle of it, and pouring coffee 
into a big bottle. Bet my last dollar they are 


ON A SHARP SCENT 105 

getting some supper to take to their prisoners. 
Here’s my chance.” 

Intensely excited Phil peered through the 
window until the men rose to come out, then 
slipping across the street he hid in a doorway 
to watch them unobserved. At the door they 
looked up and down the street then turning 
to the right made their way along through the 
crowd, stopping now and then to exchange 
greetings with some one. Evidently they were 
well known in the neighborhood. Around the 
second corner they turned, and Phil followed 
hastily just in time to see them turn into the 
open hallway of a dark tenement two or three 
doors from the corner. 

“Now what?” he asked himself. “I can’t 
go in after them. They’d simply catch me 
and add me to their list of prisoners. Pve 
got no ground to call in the police for a search. 
Besides Mr. Bowers wants this kept out of 
the hands of the police. I’ll watch awhile and 
see if anybody shows at the windows. There 
are two windows of a big room just lighted up. 
Perhaps they went in there. Down go the 
shades! What about shadows? Wouldn’t it 
be gorgeous if I could see Jimmy’s shadow on 
the shade with one of those wops handing him 
a sandwich? That would make a human in- 
terest story for your life.” 


106 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

But dreaming in this fashion did not get 
Phil very far. No shadows appeared, it was 
getting late, the crowds were thinning out and 
the chances of his being taken for a suspicious 
person were growing fast. 

All of a sudden he saw a man run down 
Mulberry Street to the corner and fling open 
a fire alarm box, turning in an alarm. The 
shrill ringing of the bell in the box quickly 
gathered crowds who came running from every 
direction. Heads were thrust out of windows 
and hoys and men came tumbling down the 
stairs of the crowded tenements. 

“Now watch them come,” thought Jim. 

While others watched for the coming of the 
engines whose clanging hells could already he 
heard in the distance, he kept his eyes on the 
tenement into which the two Italians had gone. 
From door to window he turned his gaze nerv- 
ously watching lest the face he sought should 
appear in the window, or the form of one of the 
Italians dash out of the door. 

The crowd was dense at the intersection of 
the two streets, and it appeared to Phil that the 
fire was in one of the tenements on Mulberry 
Street but so near the corner that the crowd 
extended into the Street on which he stood. 
Moreover some of the engines were coming 


ON A SHARP SCENT 107 

down his throughfare, so he was clearly in the 
thick of it. 

“It isn’t in my house, worse luck,” said Phil. 
“If it were Pietro would have to let his cap- 
tives out. But it’s pretty near. I shouldn’t 
wonder if the tenement it is in hacked up 
against this one. If it does the firemen will 
make them clear everybody out. Lucky I’ve 
got my fire badge here. Maybe I’ll get a 
chance to get into that place after all. 

“Hello, there they come!” 

The two Italians came running out of the 
door of the tenement and joined the crowd in 
Mulberry Street awaiting the coming of the 
engines. There was a lively scurry in the 
crowded street. Push-cart men began racing 
down the roadway to find places of refuge from 
the fire department's apparatus which with 
shrieking sirens and clanging bells came rush- 
ing to the alarm through the crowds which scat- 
tered on every side at their approach. Noth- 
ing but a field battery swinging into action 
can compare in dramatic effect with the dash 
of the New York fire department through a 
congested thoroughfare to the scene of an 
alarm. Old-fashioned folk may find something 
lacking nowadays since the magnificent horses 
which formerly drew the engines, and seemed 


108 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

to take a positive pride in their spectacular 
work, have been supplanted by motors. But 
even at that the sight of these great shining 
engines, or the long and seemingly unwieldy 
hook-and-ladder trucks, rushing pell-mell down 
a narrow street, thronged on either side with 
wagons and pushcarts fleeing for dear life to 
the curbs, and the police rushing ahead to clear 
the way has in it something to stir the blood 
and set the pulses leaping. The charging field 
battery goes into action to take life — the fire 
department makes its races to ward off death. 

Phil saw the two Italians leave the front hall 
of the tenement and then, much to his satis- 
faction, the police drew a cordon about that 
section of the street to keep the crowds back. 

“That’s good luck for me,” he reflected. 
“I’ve got my fire badge and can get through 
the lines all right and perhaps the police will 
keep those fellows out. I guess I’ll just take 
a look around the corner and see Row much of 
a blaze it is.” 

Fumbling under his overcoat he took out the 
metal badge with which all reporters are fur- 
nished by the police authorities and which en- 
titles them to pass the lines of the police at 
fires, disasters or other occasions which draw 
crowds requiring police regulation. Putting 
it on his outer coat he nodded to the patrolman 


ON A SHARP SCENT 109 

who was keeping back the crowd and went down 
the middle of the street to the corner. 

“Wow!” he exclaimed in surprise. 4 ‘ Some 
fire ! 1 y 

The two lower floors of a five story tenement 
were blazing briskly. The shop on the ground 
must have contained some sort of inflammable 
material despite the fire ordinance to the con- 
trary, for it was a seething furnace of flame 
and from it and the windows immediately 
above dense volumes of black smoke were 
belching forth. From some of the windows 
higher up men and women in all stages of night 
dress were frantically waving their arms and 
shouting in a vain endeavor to make themselves 
heard against the roar of the engines which 
rumbled like gigantic cats purring in content. 
The firemen were already busy. Streams were 
pouring upon the flames on the ground floor, 
and men were clambering up the ladders to the 
windows where the affrighted people were cry- 
ing for aid. 

It was a scene entirely familiar to Phil who 
had had more than once to run to fires to bring 
the copy of the reporters assigned to cover the 
disaster. 

In newspaper offices it is well known that 
there is no event so difficult to report in a 
complete and workmanlike manner as a great 


110 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

fire. Everybody on the ground who is in a 
position to know anything is too busy or too 
excited to answer questions. The picturesque 
description of the scene, if it happens to be 
an unusual one, is easy enough, but the reporter 
finds himself obliged to find out the names of 
the owners of perhaps three or four buildings 
wdiich are blazing merrily with no owners pres- 
ent. The tenants are usually too much con- 
cerned with their own affairs at that moment 
to stop to satisfy a curious questioner. Then 
there is the insurance to be reported — how 
much and in what companies. At midnight 
with a block blazing and people frantic with 
apprehension of their loss it is no easy task to 
find just the right man to tell you all about the 
insurance. The cause of the fire can generally 
be learned from one of the Fire Department 
captains. The ownership and the insurance 
figures usually are obtainable from the insur- 
ance patrol which attends all fires. But if in 
his search for these data the reporter finds his 
job further complicated by a gallant rescue of 
life, or perhaps a fatality or two, he finishes 
his night’s work with a very lively sense of 
having had a man’s job to do and having been 
lucky if he has done it well. 

Phil, however, had but little time to-night to 
observe the stirring scene before him. He saw 


ON A SHARP SCENT 


111 


quickly enough that there was not likely to be 
any loss of life, for the tenements stretched the 
length of the block in an unbroken line, and all 
that the people who were cut off by the fire be- 
low needed to do was to go to the roofs and 
walk away to a building the fire could not reach. 
For those who lost their heads,, and were too 
frightened to take the easy way of escape — 
there always are such at every fire — the firemen 
with their ladders, and their nets to catch those 
who might jump were fully prepared. 

It seemed clear too that the fire-fighters had 
the situation well in hand and the flames were 
not likely to spread. This was something of a 
disappointment to Phil who thought that if the 
building in which he suspected the men he 
sought were concealed should be threatened the 
firemen would compel the opening of every 
room. But there was to be no such luck, so 
leaving the fire department to its fight he turned 
back to the open hallway of the suspected tene- 
ment. This and the sidewalk before it were 
now seemingly deserted. The people had run 
to the scene of the fire, and the police were now 
keeping the street clear for the engines two of 
which were rumbling away on opposite comers, 
while the long trucks of two hook-and ladder 
companies filled the middle of the street. 

Reaching the door Phil entered. 


112 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

It was the typical narrow, dark and dirty 
stairway of an east side tenement. Black, 
greasy stairs, with a handrail that seemed slimy 
to the touch, led from floor to floor, and on each 
landing three or four grimy doors gave access 
to the rooms beyond. The landings were nar- 
row and dark„ despite the flames of gas, un- 
shaded and turned low, that burnt feebly on 
each floor. Along the walls a streak of grime 
told of the incessant rubbing of dirty hands or 
shoulders as the tenement dwellers made their 
way through the gloom. 

“ Tough place to be kept prisoner,” thought 
Phil, “but I should say it was tougher still to 
live in all the time.” 

Tie was puzzled now as to what should be his 
next step. On the four floors of the tenement 
there was literally nothing to give him a hint 
as to what door to try in his search for the miss- 
ing men. All were equally dark and forbidding. 
Stooping with his ear to the keyhole he tried at 
two or three to learn whether there were any 
sounds within to guide him. But all was silent. 
Either the tenants were all out watching the 
progress of the fire, or they were asleep for it 
was now midnight. Cautiously he tried one or 
two of the doors. They were locked, and it was 
with rather a sense of relief that he found them 
so, for it was a place clearly tenanted by rough, 


ON A SHARP SCENT 


113 


if not lawless people and what might happen to 
him if he walked boldly into a room where he 
had no business and was caught was not 
pleasant to imagine. 

How long he might prowl in safety, protected 
to some degree by the police lines which kept the 
tenants of the tenement from returning, he 
could not guess. It was not reasonable to 
imagine that the legitimate residents would be 
kept out long. As he pondered he climbed from 
floor to floor, listening at the doors he passed, 
and scrutinizing them for anything that might 
give a hint of the nature of the people sheltered 
behind them. He was on the third floor when 
he heard voices and the heavy steps of men com- 
ing up the first flight of stairs. 

What to do now? He tip-toed softly onto the 
last stairway leading to the top floor. If the 
newcomers followed him that far he was lost 
unless he could invent a plausible reason for 
lurking about those hallways. It was true that 
probably scores of people used those halls, for 
the tenement was crowded like an ants’ nest, 
but his clothing would quickly arouse the sus- 
picion of any who might encounter him, while 
if he were challenged in Italian he would have 
no way to answer, and all the denizens of the 
house were clearly of that nationality. 

He kept going upward, and the footsteps be- 


114 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

low continued to ascend. He was now on the 
top floor, and the two men halted just below him. 
He could not tell whether they were getting out 
keys to open one of the rooms on that floor, or 
had stopped for a conference before ascending 
to the top. If they continued to come up he 
would infallibly be detected unless there might 
be a ladder and scuttle to the roof by which he 
might escape. But while he was looking fur- 
tively about for these means of salvation the 
low voices below ceased and he heard the fum- 
bling of a key for the lock. 

Moving quietly to the bannister he looked 
over. As he suspected the two men were the 
ones he had seen in the cafe, and before that in 
the garage far uptown. They were unlocking 
the door to the front room of the tenement, 
and even as he watched them it swung open. 
From his station he could not see into the 
room, but it was evident that if any light were 
burning within it was turned very low. In an 
instant Phil heard a firm voice speak up in 
English. 

“So you’re back. We didn’t know but that 
you intended to leave us tied here to burn with 
the house.” 

“You lucky,” responded a gruff voice with 
a decidedly foreign accent. “What we care if 
you burn. You know too much. That other 


ON A SHARP SCENT 


115 


fellow got to come up with the goods, with the 
money, or something worse than burning up 
will come to him. ’ ’ 

Phil heard a suppressed groan. 

“What do you fellows think you are,” con- 
tinued the first voice which had a familiar 
sound to the listener in the hallway, who mean- 
time had crept down the stairs and taken a 
position close to the crack of the door. “You 
can’t put a thing like this over in New York. 
This isn’t Naples you know. Probably Toni’s 
wife has got the police after you already, and 
if you’ve got her too scared for that my paper 
will be raking out every slum in Little Italy for 
me just as soon as it finds that I am definitely 
gone. Don’t you monkey with the press, 
Pietro my boy. You needn’t think you’ve got 
me scared. You are the fellow that’s in bad. 
I shouldn’t wonder if The Blade had a man 
right in this building now.” 

The accuracy of that chance shot made Phil 
in the hallway gasp. It was evidently Hol- 
brook talking and to the young aspirant for a 
reporter’s place it seemed as if some super- 
human quality of second sight had enabled the 
veteran newspaper man to come so close to the 
fact. Evidently the Italian himself was star- 
tled for jumping to his feet he pushed the door 
close to with a bang. Phil heard the rattle of 


116 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

a chain within, then the murmur of voices in 
a conversation which, strain his ears as he 
might, he could not make out. 

i ‘ What next?” thought Phil who had shrunk 
into the darkest corner as he heard the man 
make for the door. He stole along the hall to 
the low-burning gas jet and looked at his 
watch. “It’s after one o’clock. Probably 
after eating their supper that crowd in there 
will go to sleep. The Italians will take turns 
in standing guard, so that even if I tried to 
make Jim hear me it would do no good. 

6 ‘Now the question is whether I’d better go 
straight to the police, rush down to the office 
and get some of the night staff to come and 
help me, or go home for a few hours rest and 
take this up on my own hook in the morning. 

“As to the police what could I say? This 
case has not been reported to them, and the 
roundsman would not be justified in breaking 
down that door just on my say so. Besides 
Mr. Bowers doesn’t want any police help. It’s 
been only twenty-four hours since Jim’s dis- 
appearance and I guess we can give another 
day to working the thing out. 

“Then as to going to the office for help. I 
suppose if I do that they will phone up to Mr. 
Bowers, and he will be very pleasant about it, 


ON A SHARP SCENT 


117 


and say that I am a bright boy, but that it ’s too 
big a job for a man not regularly on the staff. 
And then he’ll put Yates or somebody on the 
story who’ll make the rescue, write the yarn 
and get all the credit. I guess I’ll just try a 
few hours more of work by myself.” 

“No, sir! I’m not going to let any one else 
in on this. I’ve found Jimmie and Salvatore 
and it ’s my story. The thing is to get them out 
without the police or anybody else helping. 
Then when I come to write the story Mr. 
Bowers will be sure to put me on assignments. 
I wonder if I dare go to my room now for a bit 
of sleep? The men might move during the 
night but it isn’t likely. They’re safer here in 
the heart of Little Italy than they would be 
anywhere else. All day in that garage, and 
this watch down here have made me dead tired. 
If I’m going to get anywhere with this thing 
I’ve got to get some sleep and go at it with a 
fresh mind. 

“Say, I wonder if I couldn’t give them a 
little scare that would worry them for awhile. 
That wop jumped mighty quick when Jimmie 
said there might be a Blade man in the building. 
Why not give them a dose of their own medi- 
cine ? ’ ’ 

Thereupon, seeking a place under the gas- 


118 PHILIP DERBY, BEPORTER 

light, Phil held a sheet of copy paper against 
the grimy wall and with a soft pencil sketched 
on it the following sinister design : 



‘ ‘ There ,’ ’ he said approvingly, “Not such a 
tine piece of drawing perhaps but quite as good 
as those fellows scare their victims with. I 
guess that will hold them in the morning. 
Meantime me for bed.” 

And fixing the warning poster securely up- 
on the outer panel of the door Phil left the 
tenement and made for home. As he passed 
the door of the coffee shop he saw a sight that 
made him start, and shrink back into a conceal- 
ing shadow. For there, lurking, as he himself 
had been an hour earlier, was Yates, of The 
Blade , peering into the shop window, and now 
and then glancing at a picture he carried in his 
hand. 

“What can this mean?” asked Phil anx- 


ON A SHARP SCENT 


119 


iously. “Has Yates got onto the same trail 
that I have found, And what’s that picture he 
is carrying? I don’t want to divide this with 
him. It’s me to beat both the police and Yates 
if I want to get any reputation out of this. 
I’d better slip away before he sees me.” And 
he slunk swiftly around the corner and started 
for his room uptown. 


CHAPTER IX 


ON THE TRAIL OF PIETRO 

The day after the disappearance of its star 
reporter the office of The Blade was as much 
in the dark as to the reason for his vanishing, 
and the place in which he might he hid as at the 
outset. No one on the staff had any idea that 
Phil, the mere inconspicuous copy boy, waS in 
any way interested in the affair, or was making 
any investigation into it. The work of run- 
ning down the story had been instrusted to 
Yates, and after twenty-four hours of investi- 
gation he had reported no progress. Indeed 
if the mutilated manuscript that Phil had dis- 
covered had been in the possession of the city 
editor it would have told about all that Yates 
had been able to discover with a day or more 
of effort. 

‘ 4 This Salvatore woman,” he said to Bowers 
in making his report Friday night, “has shut 
up like a safe with a time lock on it. Evidently 
she has been terrorized in some way. Her 
manner shows clearly enough that she is still 
worried to death about her husband and has no 
120 


ON THE TRAIL OF PIETRO 121 


idea of where he is 'being hid, but seemingly 
she does not want any search made for him 
nor any sort of publicity given to his absence. 

1 ‘ 1 told her that we would print his picture 
and offer a reward for information concerning 
him and she fairly went into hysterics. 

‘ 4 4 No ! no ! no ! ’ she cried, ‘ they would kill him 
surely. You do not know those terrible people. 
They kill as easy as they eat or drink. I have 
seen them in my own country, and they are do- 
ing the same things over here. If Toni had 
only given them what they demanded ! Surely 
it would not have ruined us. He would have 
had enough left to live on. Now they have got 
him, and the money is no good to me.’ 

I asked her what she proposed to do, if she 
was so afraid of the police or of our aid. At 
first she was stubborn and would say nothing. 
But at last I got her to say that she expected 
the fellows would send her a demand for ran- 
som and that she would get the money from the 
bank and pay it. She seemed to believe that 
the cashier who is some sort of a relative of 
Salvatore’s would let her draw any sum 
against the banker’s personal account.” 

“Do you think the demand has been made 
yet?” asked Bowers. 

“I am confident it had not been up to the 
time I left her about five this afternoon, but I 


122 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

am almost equally confident that when it is 
made she will conceal it from me. Her whole 
idea is to pay the blackmail and keep every- 
thing secret. I shouldn’t wonder if when the 
payment is made and she gets her Toni back 
again she would try to get him to skip out for 
Italy on the next boat.” 

“■Well, what is your line of work now?” 

“I have young Lang working with me on the 
case, and I’ve posted him at the bank to keep 
watch on every messenger that comes in there, 
or goes up to the apartment above. He is to 
take special heed of any effort to leave or carry 
away a note. He went on when I left about 
five, but I think I ought to have another man 
to take up the watch at midnight. Those 
fellows don’t do their work by day, and it will 
take three of us at least to keep the place shad- 
owed. Lang has been told all I know about the 
case, and will follow any man who sees Mrs. 
Salvatore, or who has any sort of a suspicious 
conference with the cashier. Luckily the man 
from the Brookside National is still there. I 
took him into my confidence and he will tip off 
to Lang any effort to draw a considerable sum 
from the Salvatore account. Couldn’t do any- 
thing with the regular cashier. He is more 
afraid of the Black Handers than Mrs. Sal- 
vatore herself. 


ON THE TRAIL OF PIETRO 123 


“But I HI tell you, Mr. Bowers. There really 
ought to be some one up there to help Lang. 
Suppose he saw his man. If he left long 
enough to phone me he might lose the scent. 
On the other hand if he went off in trail of the 
fellow the watch on the hank would he broken 
and we would not know what would be going 
on.” 

“Quite right,’ ’ said Bowers, “I’ll send an- 
other man up right away. But were you able 
to learn anything more about Jim?” 

“Nothing that I did not report to you over 
the phone. Both the cashier and Mrs. Sal- 
vatore remember him well. The cashier says 
that he stood at the customers’ desk and wrote 
for a long time. That must have been the 
story which he thought he was sending down 
to us. Then he was seen to walk over to the 
garage. That is the last I can learn about him. 
If he left the garage it was no doubt in a car, 
and the men who were there that night have 
vanished. It seems likely that the same crowd 
that is holding Salvatore is holding Jimmie as 
well but we have no proof of it.” 

“All right. We’ve got to remember that 
this thing must be solved in the next twenty- 
four hours or the chief will call in the police. 
He doesn’t like the idea of leaving Jim Hol- 
brook without assistance for so long a time. 


124 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

I HI bet Jim is having the time of his life, and 
will come back with a story that will make 
people sit np. By the way, suppose you look 
through the morgue and see if we’ve got any 
clippings about that fellow Salvatore. i r ou 
might run through the clippings about the 
Black Hand too, and see if there is anything 
to identify the people mixed up in this affair 
with any earlier occurrence of the same 
sort.” 

‘ 1 The morgue ’ ’ is the rather gruesome name 
given by newspaper men to the collection of 
clippings of daily occurrences that is carefully 
kept up in all well managed newspaper offices. 
The name, of course, comes from the fact that 
these clippings are most frequently referred 
to for the purpose of preparing obituary 
notices of eminent citizens at the time of their 
death. Indeed in the case of the more eminent 
such obituaries are kept prepared and brought 
carefully up to date every now and then by the 
keeper of the morgue in order that they may 
be all ready for the printer the moment the 
news of the regrettable demise reaches the 
office. 

But the uses of a newspaper morgue are far 
more various than its name would indicate. 
It is a looseleaf encyclopedia brought daily up 
to date*, a current history of the world’s doings 


ON THE TRAIL OF PIETRO 125 


including innumerable happenings which the 
normal historian would ignore but which may 
at any time be given a new, if passing, impor- 
tance; it is a gallery of portraits both literary 
and pictorial, for a well kept morgue will not 
only have brief biographies of every one in 
whom the public may take even a vague inter- 
est, but will have a collection of published 
portraits as well. 

In a large morning newspaper office three or 
four men are kept constantly busy keeping up 
the morgue and responding to demands for the 
matter in it. Every paper in the city of publi- 
cation is read carefully, and usually one or 
more papers of national standing published in 
other cities. Weeklies and magazines also are 
scanned especially for descriptive articles 
about persons or places. The utmost care 
however is given to the paper published in that 
particular office. This is read by an expert 
who marks every article in which appears a 
name of either person, place or thing about 
which there is the slightest chance of future 
interest. He marks every editorial bearing 
upon a subject of general dispute so that if a 
year later the able editor wants to indulge in 
the favorite pastime of reprinting “what The 
Blade said on this subject,” and thereby prove 
his superhuman foresight, a reference to the 


126 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

morgue will at once produce the article sought. 

In some newspapers the clipping and filing of 
these articles is supplemented by their entry 
in a book or index by consulting which one can 
find the exact date on which an article on, for 
example, a new air-ship was published in the 
paper indexed. At least one newspaper prints 
and sells such an index to its own files, and it 
has proved of great value to investigators in 
many lines. As a rule however the newspapers 
content themselves with clipping the important 
items and filing them in heavy envelopes in 
accordance with a system of classification 
which enables the morgue keeper to turn direct 
to the topic sought. There is no better occu- 
pation for the leisure moments of the young 
newspaper man, or the youth who expects to 
enter the profession of journalism, than the 
establishment and maintenance of a clipping 
file of this character. It will not only be ed- 
ucational in itself, but it will in the end be a 
collection of great value to him in later life. 
Many individual files have been collected 
which had a value of thousands of dollars. 

Now the possible value of the morgue in a 
case like this of Salvatore lay in the chance 
that in it might be found some reference to 
earlier troubles of the same sort in which the 
banker might have been a figure, or some story 


ON THE TRAIL OF PIETRO 127 


of a prior Black Hand plot the methods of 
which might suggest that its participants might 
be the same men who had abducted the banker. 
So entering the railed-off partition that con- 
stituted the morgue Yates sat down at a table 
in an alcove surrounded by shelves filled with 
classified envelopes. 

“Gimme what you have on Salvatore, the 
Black Hand and anything that might identify 
a wop banker,” said he to the keeper of the 
morgue whose alert and cheery air did not har- 
monize well with the name of his occupation. 

“What’s the story, Bob?” asked the latter as 
after a few moments search he dropped a num- 
ber of manila envelopes on the desk before the 
reporter. 

“Oh, a banker named Salvatore has disap- 
peared and there’s reason to suspect that he’s 
being held for a ransom.” 

“Something like that old case of Petrozzi, 
the millionaire junkman, eh?” 

“What was that? I don’t remember it.” 

“Oh, that was nearly ten years ago. I was 
a copy reader then, and remember the story. 
I’ll look in a minute and see if we’ve got any- 
thing about it. The morgue wasn’t kept so 
well then as it is now under my able manage- 
ment. ’ ’ 

Both youths grinned. The speaker continued. 


128 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

“This man Petrozzi was one of these indus- 
trious and saving Italians who come over here 
to make a stake, and go back to the old country, 
set up a wine shop and live in luxurious idle- 
ness ever after. He was getting there all right 
too. He began going about the east side with 
a burlap bag over his shoulder and buying as 
much junk as he could carry to the selling place. 
By and by he got a push cart, then a wagon 
with a quadruped that it would be base flat- 
tery to call a horse, then he began buying from 
the fellows who went about with burlaps bags 
as he had in his earlier days. Then he bought 
more wagons and hired fellows to run them. 
Finally he leased a vacant lot way up in Har- 
lem and used it to store the junk which kept 
coming in increasing quantities. He had be- 
gun to be known at his bank by this time, for 
though his borrowings were small they were 
always paid promptly and his balance was 
quite as big as those of people who lived in 
much more ostentatious fashion. A little shack 
in one corner of his junk yard, made out of the 
junk itself sufficed for him, and he lived there 
alone doing his own cooking. With borrowed 
money he bought the land he was using at a 
time when that part of Harlem was not easy 
to get at, and lots were cheap. Not many years 
later the east side subway was put through 


ON THE TRAIL OF PIETRO 129 


and Petrozzi awoke to find out that the people 
of the city who paid for that subway had made 
him richer in a night than he had made himself 
by all his years of hard work and pinching 
economy. ’ ’ 

“Here, hold on,” said Yates, “what’s this 
you’re giving me! A lecture on how to get 
on in the world without economy or hard work! 
I ’ve got work to do right now, and if anything 
encourages economy it’s the wages paid on this 
Blade.” 

“Well, no matter. What I was going to tell 
you was that nobody had bothered Petrozzi 
when he was poor and looked it. He never 
had time to look otherwise, but when the news 
began to get around Little Italy that he was 
in fact very rich his troubles began. And the 
most serious of those troubles was the raid 
made upon him by blackmailers — they didn’t 
call them the Black Hand then. They sent mys- 
terious men to threaten him as he lay in his 
shack at dead of night. Messages demanding 
the payment of hush money were delivered to 
him in the most amazing ways — sometimes he’d 
find them in the junk he’d bought, sometimes 
they were tacked to the door of his hovel so he 
would see them when he opened up in the morn- 
ing. Coffins, stilettoes and jagged clubs were 
the favorite illustrations for these letters, I 


130 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

remember. I was covering the story for the 
old Star. 

“I’ll say for Petrozzi that he was game. 
Either that or he cared more for his money 
than he did for any evil thing that might be- 
fall him. He just shrugged his shoulders, 
took the letters as they came, tore down the 
posters, and bought a sawed-off shot gun which 
he used to keep loaded and standing in the cor- 
ner of his shack. He got a snappy little mon- 
grel dog too which he kept with him, and which 
ought to have been sure to give the alarm if 
anybody tried to approach the place. Never- 
theless one morning old Petrozzi was found to 
have disappeared.” 

“Ever find him?” asked Yates, who mean- 
time had been going through the pile of clip- 
pings before him. 

“Yep. The police ran his abductors down. 
It seemed that the old fellow had told the cops 
about the affair, and they had picketed his 
shack to catch any one who might approach it. 
But the matter must have leaked somehow, for 
that very night the old fellow was seized on a 
dark street as he was coming home, gagged, 
bound and tumbled into a closed wagon. He 
didn’t have any chance to use his gun. While 
the sleuths were crouched behind piles of junk 
in his yard waiting for the conspirators, those 


ON THE TRAIL OP PIETRO 131 


fellows struck and got away with their victim. 
They took him to some back room in a tene- 
ment down in Little Italy and kept him there 
with nothing to eat, and making threats against 
his life until he finally weakened. He gave up 
$20,000, going to his own bank, under guard and 
not daring to say a word as he handed in the 
check and got the currency. Then they took 
him back to his prison, and thence to a train, re- 
leasing him in a small town up state with dire 
threats as to what would happen to him if he 
ever tried to find his abductors. 

i i The old man tried to live up to his promise 
of silence, but the police abused him almost as 
much as the criminals had until they made him 
give up all he knew. You see he had put them 
on to the affair before the actual abduction 
occurred. In the end an Italian detective — the 
same fellow whom the Mafia afterwards killed 
over in Italy where he had gone after a fugi- 
tive — ran down the gang, and two were con- 
victed on Petrozzi ’s testimony. He was scared 
to death, and lived under police protection un- 
til he could sell all he had and go back to 
Italy. ’ ’ 

‘ 4 That ’s something like this case I am at work 
on,” said Yates reflectively “ although Sal- 
vatore has been more secret about his troubles. 
The police aren’t onto it yet. Say, if you’ve 


132 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

got an envelope with that case in it let me look 
at it will you?” 

The other went off and soon returned bring- 
ing the envelope. 

“Here you are,” said he, “Petrozzi case, 
jury convicts. Tomasso Conti and Pietro 
Benda get six years. Say, with good conduct 
allowance they would have been out just about 
three months. Wonder if they could have been 
mixed up in this affair of yours. You know 
old habits like that are hard to break. ’ * 

“Let’s look at those clippings,” said Yates. 
“Pity the case wasn’t big enough to justify 
the papers in printing pictures of the accused 
then. But somehow I ’ve heard the name Pietro 
in this case somewhere. Who used it ? Whose 
name was it? Not the cashier’s, for the mis- 
tress called him Carlo. What other man did 
she name? By G-eorge, I have it. She said 
that once when her husband got a threatening 
letter he took it over to the garage and showed 
it to Pietro. And that garage keeper disap- 
peared the same night that Jim did. It looks 
to me as if I was hot on the trail. Much obliged 
old man. I’ll not need the rest of the clip- 
pings. ’ ’ 

And mightily excited Bob Yates was speed- 
ily on his way back to the city room with the 
first good clue that had come his way. 


CHAPTER X 


A POLICE DETECTIVE HELPS 

“ Hello/ ’ said the city editor as Yates came 
up to his desk, “you look as if you had got on 
the trail at last.” 

“Well, it’s a mighty faint scent but maybe 
it will lead us to the game. I found out this 
morning that the keeper of the garage who 
rented Jim the car in which he disappeared 
was known in the neighborhood as ‘ Pietro 
Bertelli’ and in the morgue I find a story of a 
blackmailing scheme in which a fellow named 
* Pietro Benda’ was convicted and sent up for 
six years. I figure that he would have been 
out about three months, and that is just a little 
longer than the time that Salvatore has been 
getting those threatening letters.” 

“Him! Rather a delicate and elusive scent 
isn’t it! Pietros are about as thick in Little 
Italy as Pats are in what we used to call Little 
Dublin — it’s gone now — and you wouldn’t think 
anyway that a man just out of Sing Sing would 
turn immediately to the same trade that sent 
him there. Was there any picture of this 
Pietro?” 


133 


134 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

“No. I suppose the case was not considered 
very important then. They only stole a banker 
not a reporter, so the papers did not get 
excited. ’ ’ 

“That’s right. The world could get along 
with fewer bankers but we can’t afford to lose 
any reporters.” 

“Well, if that’s the way you feel about it 
perhaps a little raise of salary might keep The 
Blade from losing me.” 

“You’re a humorist. You know we only talk 
of raising salaries on the 29th of February 
with leap years barred. So forget it, and tell 
me what you are going to do with this shadowy 
trail of yours.” 

“It looks to me as if we’d have to go to the 
police. Oh, don ’t be in a hurry. I don’t mean 
to tell them the whole story, about Jim and 
all the rest. But at least we can find out 
whether they have kept tab on this Benda 
fellow since he came out, and whether any 
suspicion has been aroused of his going back to 
his old ways. They might know whether he 
took up the business of running a garage — 
since I bought my flivver I have come to the 
conclusion that Black-Handing is an honest and 
benevolent occupation compared to keeping a 
garage. Anyway I might be able to get some 
sort of a description of the original Pietro at 


A POLICE DETECTIVE HELPS 135 


police headquarters and see if it corresponds 
with what I have been able to learn about this 
fellow. It won’t be necessary to explain just 
what I have on my mind.” 

“No, it won’t be necessary to explain, but 
you won’t be out of Mulberry Street before 
those fellows will be at work shadowing you, 
and using every device to find out what you are 
at work on. They are mighty jealous of news- 
paper invasions of their field, and while they 
haven’t always the time, or the brains, to catch 
crooks themselves they are busy as bees in their 
efforts to head us off from catching them first. 

“But I’ll tell you what to do. You go up to 
Mulberry Street and find Fred Mather. Tell 
him the whole story and make him understand 
that I want to have it kept quiet for at least 
one day more. He has been doing police for us 
so long that the coppers look on him as one of 
themselves. He can sit down to a game of 
pinochle with a batch of headquarters detectives 
and learn all they know before anybody has had 
time to losei fifty cents. It isn’t impossible 
that he may know something about this case 
in the records for he has been doing police for 
twenty years, and his^ memory on anything 
that ever came up at Headquarters is more 
serviceable than any morgue I ever saw. You 
go up and see him, and if you get another lead 


136 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

there phone me. To-morrow is Saturday, and 
I’d like a bully good story for the Sunday 
paper. Besides the chief has said that if we 
can’t solve this thing by Sunday it must be 
given over to the police to handle. Rush it.” 

With that password of the newspaper ringing 
in his ears, Bob “ rushed it” to the street, and 
was presently on his way through one of New 
York’s most picturesque, though most squalid, 
sections toward the great gray stone building 
in which are housed the executive offices of the 
Police Department. 

In the language of the streets, of the under- 
world, and of all who have anything to do with 
that mysterious stratum of New York’s society 
Police Headquarters is known simply as i ‘ Mul- 
berry Street.” In that thoroughfare which at 
its lower end is given over to crowded tene- 
ments housing mostly Italians, the Department 
has been located for many years, first in an 
ancient but spacious building of red brick, but 
latterly in a granite edifice that hides more 
romances than ever attached to any feudal 
castle of the dark ages. 

Fred Mather, the police reporter whom Yates 
sought, had been assigned to headquarters for 
almost a quarter of a century. Prior to taking 
up the reportorial work for The Blade he had 
been like Phil a messenger, or copy boy whose 


A POLICE DETECTIVE HELPS 137 


duty it was to bring to the office the copy writ- 
ten by The Blade’s man at headquarters. In 
his earlier days there had been no telephones, 
and everything had to be rushed at topmost 
speed from the reporter’s room in Mulberry 
Street to the editorial rooms on Park Place. 
Under the conditions existing to-day the police 
reporter instead of writing his story would 
telephone it in, often sending the merest out- 
line of the facts, leaving the i ‘ rewrite men” in 
the office to make a readable story of it. 

This modern system unquestionably results 
in a great saving of time, which, especially in 
the case of evening papers, is a vital necessity. 
Often the news of some event reported to police 
headquarters will be set forth with substantial 
accuracy in a paper printed half a mile away 
before the desk sergeant has fully finished not- 
ing it on the blotter. To papers issuing regular 
editions every hour, and keenly alive to every 
chance for an “ extra” the telephone is not 
merely a great convenience but is almost a 
necessity of life. It is difficult to see how they 
could be published without it. But newspaper 
men of the older generation deplore this sys- 
tem even while they admit its many merits. 
For it has put an end to the well written story 
of police happenings — and not all police news 
is the news of crimes by any means. A morn- 


138 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

ing newspaper man in Mulberry Street does 
occasionally get an opportunity to tell with 
some degree of literary skill the story of the 
amazing chapters of human life that are en- 
acted before the eyes of the police of a great 
city. Some of the most notable of our writers 
of fiction served their apprenticeships in the 
dingy reporters’ room opposite to old head- 
quarters in Mulberry Street. Some found 
so much of fascination, and so many oppor- 
tunities for usefulness in the service there that 
they never left it, repelling all suggestions of 
the more dignified and profitable positions of 
editors, and remaining to the end of their days 
police reporters by choice. They were close 
to the daily life of that great common people 
of whom Abraham Lincoln once said ‘ ‘ God must 
love the common people; He made so many 
of them.” 

The name of one of these devoted police 
reporters is indelibly imprinted upon the his- 
tory of Mulberry Street and its vicinity. 

Jacob A. Riis was a Dane who came in youth 
to the United States to seek fortune. Fortune 
he never found, if by fortune we mean great 
sums of money and release from the task of 
earning a livelihood. But he found something 
higher and better, and found it right in the re- 
porters ’ room of the old Mulberry Street head- 


A POLICE DETECTIVE HELPS 139 


quarters where he sat as a reporter for more 
than 25 years. 

Some men might have found in the endless 
tales of human misery, frailty and sin that came 
hour by hour into that grim and noisome clear- 
ing house for crime nothing but an excuse to 
look out upon the world with cynical and cold 
indifference to this spectacle of widespread hu- 
man degradation. 

Not so Riis. He became first of all a good 
reporter — so good that time and again his 
paper — The Sun in its days of greatest bril- 
liancy — repeatedly offered him promotion, and 
none the less rejoiced when he declared his 
purpose to stick to the work which he could do 
best, and in which he had already begun to 
discern the opportunity of service to mankind. 
His daily task was to write truthfully the story, 
let us say, of some shocking crime commit- 
ted in the filthy and overcrowded tenements 
that then stood in Mulberry Bend, and the now 
vanished Five Points. He did the task, and 
wrote his story well and with a trained eye to 
the needs and the demands of the newspaper 
reader for details — even shocking ones. But 
back of the crime which he described he saw 
a greater crime ; a crime of which all the people 
of New York were equally guilty; the crime of 
letting children grow up in these crowded and 


140 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

noisome tenements, where scenes of drunken- 
ness and outlawry were of every day occur- 
rence, where dirt and filth were as much a part 
of the “homes” as the very flooring or the 
plaster on the walls. He saw the crime of per- 
mitting grasping landlords to compel multi- 
tudes of their fellow beings to live under con- 
ditions which would revolt swine. 

The evil that he saw he combated as the 
thoroughbred reporter would attack it — not by 
argument or by editorial denunciation, but by 
a plain, straightforward and vivid statement 
of the facts. Day after day he described the 
foul and squalid tenements, with their dark and 
unventilated rooms, their total lack of sanitary 
conveniences, their insufficient supply of water, 
their dark and filthy halls the lurking places of 
crime, their backyards filled with garbage and 
inviting a pestilence. He told the story of the 
life of children brought up in so corrupting an 
atmosphere, and showed how little chance they 
had to develop into anything except criminals, 
or weak and diseased charges upon the charity 
of the town. He kept persistently at it in the 
columns of his newspapers, a true “voice cry- 
ing in the wilderness.” At last his stories 
attracted attention. A magazine editor sought 
them for his publication. They were put into 
a book, and then into a series of books. The 


A POLICE DETECTIVE HELPS 141 


interest of Theodore Roosevelt, then rising to 
prominence, was enlisted. The conscience of 
the community was aroused and the work of 
the reporter began to bear fruit. 

As a result of this work tenement house laws 
were enacted which corrected the most crying 
evils which he had depicted. The worst of 
the slums were done away with. “Five 
Points” which had been for almost a century 
New York’s center of wretchedness and crime 
disappeared before broad new streets which 
were cut through at public cost. Where Mul- 
berry Bend was with its fetid tenements is now 
a spacious park with a playground for children 
well equipped with athletic apparatus. The 
“dumb-bell” tenement is outlawed and is rap- 
idly disappearing, and, while life in the con- 
gested district is still hard enough and squalid 
enough, its conditions are vastly ameliorated. 
And it is due above all to the work of the man 
who all his life was content to remain a police 
reporter — Jacob A. Riis. 

Through the park still crowded with young- 
sters and up Mulberry Street Yates walked un- 
til he came to the great granite police head- 
quarters. Here he prowled around looking for 
Mather who had “done police” for The Blade 
for nearly twenty-five years. 

In a big room off of which opened doors lead- 


142 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

ing into private offices, and in which a sprink- 
ling of police uniforms mingled with the 
clothes of civilians who were loafing about with 
apparently nothing in the world to do, Yates 
found Mather. The police reporter, smoking 
an ancient and not over-reputable corn-cob 
pipe, was sitting with his feet on a table, and 
apparently swapping stories with a burly man 
in plain clothes whose cold hard face suggested 
long familiarity with the rougher side of life. 
Seeing Bob he cut short his story and came 
over. 

“What’s up!” 

“Bowers wanted me to talk with you a little 
about that matter of Holbrook.” 

“He isn’t ready to let the police in on it yet, 
is he!” 

“No, but we need a little information which 
he thought you could get without letting the 
police on to the whole thing.” 

“All right. Shoot.” 

Bob told him the story as far as it had de- 
veloped and produced the clippings from the 
morgue dealing with the Petrozzi case. 

“What we want to find out,” said he, “is 
whether this Pietro Benda stayed in New York 
after being freed, whether the police kept an 
eye on him, and what they know about his 
doings. ’ ’ 


A POLICE DETECTIVE HELPS 143 


“Uh-huh. Wait a minute.” 

Mather disappeared through one of the 
doors. In a few minutes he came back with a 
rather faded photograph in his hand. 

“Here's the picture of Benda taken at the 
time he was sent up. You don’t happen to 
know what your man looked like do you!” 

“No, never saw him. Jim saw him all 
right but we can’t find Jim. Can’t I take that 
photo up to the garage and see if the present 
keeper — fellow named Giddings — recognizes 
it?” 

“They won’t let us take it out. It belongs 
in the rogues’ gallery. They’d give me an 
officer to take it up to the garage for identifi- 
cation but in that case we’d have to let them 
know what we are working on. I’ll get the 
photographer to make me a print of it. It 
won’t take long and in the meantime we’ll look 
up Joe Mora who knows most of these Italian 
criminals^. It’s as much his business to be 
friendly with them as it is ours to know how 
to spell. Let’s see. It’s about seven o’clock. 
Joe is likely to be at Frangetti’s spaghetti 
house. Had your dinner yet ! If you can 
stand a Dago feed of spaghetti and chicken 
we might go over there?” 

“Sounds good to me. Let’s go.” 

Mather took the picture to the photograph 


144 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

room with a request for another print and in 
a few minutes they were threading their way 
through the crowded sidewalks of Mulberry 
Street towards its intersection with Hester, at 
that time the most typically Italian section of 
all New York. Had they but known it they 
passed directly before the door of the coffee 
shop in which Phil a few hours later was to 
discover the two Italian suspects, and they 
walked within a few yards of the squalid tene- 
ment in which Holbrook and his fellow victim 
were even then locked up. Some thought of 
this kind suggested itself to the experienced 
mind of Mather for he waved his arm up at the 
crowded rows of tenements on either side of 
them, and remarked. “How easy it would be 
for them to hide our men away right here with- 
in a stone’s throw of police headquarters. 
These Italians stick together against all out- 
siders, and even if any other tenants were sus- 
picious of what might be going on a hint that 
the Black Hand was mixed up in it would keep 
them all as silent as turtles. That’s where the 
police have the best of us in a search of this 
sort. If I told the man we are going to see now 
just what we suspect he would go into every 
one of the buildings in which any one lives at all 
suspected of irregular ways of earning a living, 
and search every room. Without a warrant? 


A POLICE DETECTIVE HELPS 145 


Sure. It’s illegal of course, but the police 
don’t stand much on legal technicalities with 
the people in this district. They know these 
fellows have no comeback, and they smash 
doors and make raids about as they see fit. It 
gets good results often, but I must admit that 
it doesn’t seem right to show these foreigners 
that our officers of the law are ready to violate 
the law. But here we are.” 

They approached an area way a foot or two 
below the surface of the street. The front 
of the basement was painted a bright blue, 
and lace curtains, the cleanliness of which con- 
trasted brightly with the general grime of the 
street, hung in the windows. Gilt letters pro- 
claimed the cheery looking spot to be “FRAN- 
GETTI’S SPAGHETTI HOUSE,” and a gen- 
tle hum of conversation and clatter of dishes 
greeted them as they pushed open the door and 
entered. 

Originally the basements of two connecting 
houses the place had been extended by roofing 
over the backyards and making a sort of rustic 
pavilion of the space so enclosed. Lines of 
tables with neat napery and shining glassware 
filled it all except where stood the cashier’s 
desk on one side, presided over by a plump 
and smiling brunette, and a huge chimney on 
the other banked high with a hard coal fire, be- 


146 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

fore which on slowly revolving spits some 
thirty or more chickens were roasting, tended 
the while hy a fat and jolly chef in white apron 
and cap. From this great “rotisserie” arose 
an appetizing odor that made Bob Yates think 
of things more intimate than his vanished 
friend, while the glowing bank of coals served 
the double purpose of browning the chickens, 
and making the air of the room pleasantly 
warm for two chilled wayfarers. 

‘ 4 Some lively little eat-shop,” remarked 
Mather as Bob, who was new to the place, 
stopped to gaze curiously at the roasting fowls. 
“Frangetti says he sells from two hundred to 
two hundred and fifty chickens a night here. 
If you ever tried to keep chickens you will 
understand that that means some good sized 
poultry yard to supply them. As one chicken 
is furnished for each four guests you can get 
an idea of how many people eat here. There’s 
never any change in the bill-of-fare. Soup, 
spaghetti, chicken, block of ice cream, small 
coffee. That’s the layout. Price one dollar. 
I remember when it used to be sixty cents, — 
and with some stuff they called wine at that. 
The Italian frequenters raised considerable 
ruction when the prohibition law cut off the 
wine, and some of them bring their own bottles 
from home now. But they are getting fewer 


A POLICE DETECTIVE HELPS 147 


and fewer, and the boss says his business is 
bigger without the wine than with it. People 
who used to pick up free lunch at the saloons 
have money enough to come here now I guess. 
Yonder’s Joe Mora with that bunch over there 
at that big table. He always keeps in touch 
wdth the people of this section and is as friendly 
with those who are crooked as with those who 
are straight — unless one of them happens to be 
wanted down at the headquarters, then it’s a 
quick trip for him. You know the only way 
these police detectives can get along is by being 
friendly with very crooks they have to detect, 
and treating them like companions unless they 
are under immediate suspicion. There. I’ve 
caught his eye. He’ll be over to our table in a 
minute. ’ ’ 

The two kept on with their meal, and in few 
minutes a burst of laughter from Mora’s table 
told that he was coming away with one of his 
stories left for a memory. Presently he 
loomed up over the table at which the two re- 
porters sat. 

“Sit down, Joe,” said Mather. “My friend 
Yates of Tine Blade is hunting for a man you 
may know. I told him you knew every Italian 
that had landed in America since the day of 
Columbus?” 

“You always were good at the telling, Fred. 


148 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

I’ll bet the fellows down at the office have to 
rewrite everything yon send in if they don’t 
want the old Blade to read like a fairy book. 
Well, Mr. Yates, glad to know you even if he did 
bring you. Who are you looking for? If he 
likes spaghetti Chianti better than Irish pota- 
toes and whiskey I probably know him. It’s 
my business to keep up with these wops, and 
I’m one myself and proud of it.” 

“Did you ever know a man named Pietro 
Benda?” 

“Sure. ‘ Smiling Pete’ we used to call him 
before he went up the river for doing an old 
banker out of $20,000 on some sort of a Black 
Hand play. We’ve got his picture now in the 
gallery. I saw him the other day, up Harlem 
way and he’s just as smiling as ever. Came 
out of the pen about four months ago and says 
he’s going straight now. Had some sort of an 
auto repair shop, he said, and I told him it 
was a tough business to keep straight in. I’d 
like to see him get along on the level though. 
He’s a good fellow even if he has done time.” 

Yates could scarcely conceal his excitement. 

“Did he tell you where his shop was?” 

“Up on Avenue A near 163rd Street. What 
are you fellows interested in him for? Trying 
to put something over on us poor coppers 1 
suppose. He’s done something crooked that 


A POLICE DETECTIVE HELPS 149 


you know about, and instead of coming to us 
guardians of the law and telling us all about 
it you come and pump us of all we know, and 
then go find your man on our information, and 
your editor fellows write articles on how much 
better detectives reporters are than the police. 
I ought to drop you both and not give you an- 
other bit of information. But this boy Fred 
is almost as good as a copper himself, and being 
as you ’re a friend of his I ’ll tell you that Smil- 
ing Pete comes down nearly every evening to 
meet up with his friends in a little coffee shop 
on this street near Mulberry. He’ll probably 
be there to-night about eleven. Do you want 
him pinched? No. That’s good. I’d hate to 
send him up again. Well then, good night boys. 
Always come to the police when you news- 
paper babies get into trouble.” 

“ Feels his oats pretty well, does Joe to- 
night,” remarked Mather as the detective 
lounged away and found a place with another 
crowd. ‘ 1 But he surely knows our man. What 
do you want to do about it now? You can be 
pretty sure that whatever you do Joe Mora is 
going to have his eye on you. He is just as 
eager to avoid being scooped by a newspaper 
as we are to get the scoop for ourselves.” 

“I think,” said Yates, “that if I can get the 
print of that portrait now I’ll take it up to the 


150 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

garage and see if Giddings can identify it. 
Then I’ll come back downtown and look for that 
coffee shop he spoke of. How late are you at 
headquarters f ’ ’ 

“Pm on duty until twelve-thirty. If you 
have need call me up. Better come up now 
and get that print. If in the course of this 
job you get an Italian stiletto in your back 
you can have the comfort of knowing that I’ll 
write the story of your noble death for The 
Blade in a way that’ll make you wish you were 
alive to read it.” 


CHAPTER XI 


a reporter's education 

The shrill, insistent demands of an alarm 
clock awoke Phil at six o 'clock Saturday morn- 
ing. The summons was by no means a welcome 
one. He had been up late the night before, 
but even more than that his mind was attuned 
to the habit of late hours both night and morn- 
ing. The morning newspaper man is much 
more accustomed to seeing the sun rising from 
its bed before he seeks his own, than to getting 
up at sunrise. Phil was not unacquainted with 
the appearance of the streets of Manhattan, 
empty and cheerless in the cold gray of a win- 
ter's morning, but he had ordinarily seen them 
thus on his way home to a warm bed after a 
hot supper at an all-night restaurant. 

So this morning the call of duty was hard 
to respond to. But suddenly his mind leaped 
into consciousness with the recollection of the 
last thing seen the night before. 

“Now where the dickens did Bob Yates get 
the trail that took him down to the coffee shop 
on Hester Street?" he thought. “And what 

151 


152 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

was that picture? He kept looking at it and 
then into the shop as if he was trying to pick 
out some man there who resembled it. Of 
course he’s been to see Mrs. Salvatore, and 
may have a picture of Toni from her, but he 
couldn ’t expect to find an abducted banker play- 
ing dominoes cheerfully in a cafe. Maybe he 
has got a picture of Pietro, but if so where 
could he have found it? One thing’s sure. 
If I’m going out on this I have got to be up 
and doing.” 

Meanwhile he was hastily splashing his face 
with cold water and slipping into his clothes. 

“Oh, bother!” he exclaimed. “What am I 
going to do about that job at the garage? If 
I go back there I must put on some older things. 
The ones I had on yesterday made the boss 
suspicious of me. But do I want to go back? 
I don’t see just what there is left for me to learn 
there. If there is any place the men I am hunt- 
ing for will avoid it is that garage. My place 
is down around that tenement on Hester 
Street — by George ! I never thought of it, but 
of course that — ‘er’ — in Jim’s note is the end 
of the word ‘Hester.’ That makes his note 
read : ‘ shall leave car at Hester Street and look 
into place near Mulberry.’ The place is the 
cafe. Jim didn’t know its number but gave his 
location so he could be traced if anything hap- 


A REPORTER’S EDUCATION 153 


pened to him. Wise old guy, Jimmie! He 
hasn’t been a New York reporter for fifteen 
years without learning that there are some 
dangers in the trade.” 

By this time the boy was dressed and ready 
for the street. At a comer newstand he 
bought a copy of The Blade and scanned it 
eagerly with the zest of a horn newspaper man 
whose newspaper must always come before his 
breakfast. Nothing appeared about the Sal- 
vatore case, so Phil ,had the satisfaction of 
knowing that at least it had not been solved 
in his absence. As he sat in a white tiled res- 
taurant consuming coffee, and the cakes which 
a man in the big window was diligently cooking 
on an electric griddle, Phil went over in his 
mind the present state of affairs, and what he 
had to do in order to get his friend out of the 
clutches of the Italians and have a story ready 
for the next morning’s paper. 

“I know where the men are,” he said to him- 
self, “or at least I know where they were at 
midnight. Now I could go down there, and 
pound on the door, raise a ruction and call 
Jim’s name so that he would know that some- 
one was looking for him. But it’s a rather 
tough joint, and the chances are about even 
that instead of getting Jimmie out I’d get my- 
self in. Or I could watch the place and when 


154 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

I saw the two Italians go out go up and break 
in the door, or at least get into communication 
with Jim. But there ’s no certainty that they 
would both go out together, and if they did they 
would probably leave their men gagged so they 
could not talk to me, unless I broke in. Be- 
sides if I did that we would probably not catch 
the kidnapers and that would spoil the story. 
Any violence in that house while they were 
away would be reported to them by way of 
warning. There are too many of their own 
sort there to risk that. 

“It looks to me as if I’d just got the open- 
ing move of this puzzle. Well, anyway, I can 
be thinking it over as I go downtown. So far 
as Giddings and his garage are concerned 
theyVe seen the last of me. He’s welcome to 
the pay for yesterday’s work.” 

So thinking Phil made his way to the Subway 
and in that roaring, rattling, rumbling cave of 
gloom made his speedy way down to Worth 
Street where he emerged into the clear air of 
a winter’s morning. Going east he soon came 
to Mulberry up which he walked to the corner 
of Hester. He was now at the scene of his 
last night’s vigil. The street in front of the 
half burned tenement was still roped off, and 
a solitary policeman kept the few idle passers- 


A REPORTER’S EDUCATION 155 


by moving on. Walking to a point opposite the 
building which he had entered the night before 
Phil scanned the windows on the third floor 
front. That was the room the men had entered 
the night before, and he wondered whether they 
had yet opened the door and been confronted 
with his warning poster. There were no signs 
of life about the windows, although other men 
were coming out of the hall and going off to 
their work. If the dingy old red brick tene- 
ment were indeed the scene of a crime it was 
about as commonplace a one as could be imag- 
ined. 

“Pm fairly stumped/ ’ said Phil. 

There seemed nothing to do for the time but 
to hang about the neighborhood and see if the 
two Italians might not put in an appearance. 
“They will probably come out before long and 
go over to that cafe for their morning coffee, ” 
he thought. “If they were workingmen they 
would be up by this time, but I suppose Black- 
Handers don’t have to keep early hours.” 

By way of killing time he put his police badge 
on his coat and walked over to chat with the 
policeman. 

“Any lives lost last night?” he asked. 

“No, most of the people got out over the 
roofs, but one or two were scared and had to 


156 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

jump. The boys got them in the net, though. 
It was a right lively little fire while it lasted. 
What’s your paper?” 

“ The Blade 

“So. Bully good paper. Always a good 
friend to the police. By the way one of your 
fellows was here about two o’clock this morn- 
ing, just as I come on post. Nice fellow he was 
too — gave me a couple of good cigars that I’ll 
smoke when I go off duty at ten. Name of 
Yates. You know him?” 

“Bob Yates? Certainly I know him. He’s 
one of the best reporters on Park Row.” 
Phil’s manner was much more cheerful than his 
reflections were. Had Yates given the story 
away to the police? Or had he gone so much 
further with it as to leave Phil hopelessly in 
the lurch? He’d try to find out more before 
getting discouraged. 

“What was Yates after up here. The fire 
story?” Phil spoke with an accent of indif- 
ference which he was far from feeling. 

“Oh no. There wasn’t nothing in that fire 
to make a story out of. Your friend seemed 
to be sort of bugs on this Black Hand business 
we hear so much of in Little Italy. Asked me 
if I knew any men who were mixed up in that 
sort of business, and whether I had seen any- 
thing around here night before last that looked 


A REPORTER'S EDUCATION 157 


like a man being dragged out of an auto by 
violence. But I couldn't help him. I'm Irish 
as ye'd guess and the wops around here don’t 
take me into their confidence. We get on all 
right, and they move on when I tell them, and 
clean up their places if I tell them about a 
hundred times. But they don't take me out 
to no spaghetti dinners, nor ask me in to any of 
their christening parties. Did yez ever see 
an Eyetalian christening? These felly s in a 
one room tenement will pile on more things to 
eat than the big bosses in Tammany get at a 
sheriff's dinner." 

The burly officer seemed rapt in thought 
of the extent of the hospitality of the Italian 
families on the joyous occasion of a christening 
and Phil had to move diplomatically to get 
him back to his subject. 

“Why do they put an Irish cop on a beat 
where there are nothing but Italians?" 

“Oh, I guess they don't want us to get too 
friendly with the wops. Ye see the Eyetalians 
is great for secret societies of all sorts, and 
it's almost impossible to get a policeman who's 
a dago himself that won't get tied up with one 
of these societies and give more time to pro- 
tecting the members of his lodge than to run- 
ning down the crooks. So they puts us Irish on 
here knowing we won't get too thick with the 


158 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

people we have to watch. Oh, we’re all good 
friends, particularly with the kiddies. Some 
of these little dago boys is bright as a flash- 
light. By the way I’ve got a boy of my own — 
about 15 he is now and in high school. I was 
thinking I’d like to get him in newspaper work. 
How does a felly go about it to get a job as a 
reporter?” 

Phil smiled somewhat grimly as he reflected 
that this was precisely the question he had been 
vainly trying to answer for his own benefit for 
some months. But the big policeman was so 
friendly that he determined to give him all the 
information he could. 

“'Well,” he said, “that’s not the easiest 
question to answer, or the easiest thing to do. 
If you were trying to get a job as reporter you 
would think that the papers never hired any- 
body that had not had several years experience, 
and you ’d wonder where they found all the men 
of experience if greenhorns could never get a 
start. But a good many fellows come into New 
York after- serving their apprenticeship on 
papers in smaller cities. Some have been edit- 
ors of their little college papers, and some have 
been country correspondents for the city papers 
and have made acquaintances in the offices that 
way. Then a lot come in as a result of having 


A REPORTER’S EDUCATION 159 


some sort of a pull or personal acquaintance 
with the owner, or one of the big fellows on the 
paper. They all pretend that this isn’t done, 
but it is all the same. Then there are some who 
begin as copy boys, or errand boys in the office 
and gradually get to doing small reportorial 
jobs. That’s the way I began.” 

Phil did not think it necessary to explain 
that he was still in that preparatory stage. 

“Now that sounds to me like the best way,” 
said the policeman eagerly, “and how much 
might a new reporter get a week?” 

“Mighty little,” responded Phil with some 
bitterness. “It all depends on the kind of as- 
signments the city editor hands out to him. 
You know we are paid by space — that is we clip 
all the stuff we have printed in the paper, paste 
it in a long ‘string’ and turn it in at the end 
of the week. We get so much a column for 
matter printed. Sometimes you will work hard 
enough getting the facts of a story to make a 
column out of it, but the paper may be crowded 
that night and the copy desk will cut it down to 
two or three sticks, and you’ll get perhaps a 
dollar for an all day’s job. I knew a copy boy 
once who was getting fourteen dollars a week. 
•He worked and planned to get a reporter’s job, 
and after he got it his earnings averaged about 


160 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

four dollars a week for the first four weeks. 
But he made good and is getting big money 
now. ’ ’ 

i ‘And sure, how much does one of your fine 
reporters, a man like the felly that talked to 
me the other night get?” 

4 ‘Well, a good reporter makes good money. 
On space he may get to running up bills of 
$100 to $125 a week. But when he gets up to 
that figure the managing editor begins to take 
notice and tells him that he will have to take 
a salary thereafter — say $100 a week. Then 
it’s up to him to decide whether the certainty 
of $100 is better than the possibility of making 
a good deal more, with the chance that the 
office will compel him to take the salary or quit. 
A newspaper isn’t published for the profit of 
its employes, and shifting a strong space man 
to a moderate salary is one of the favorite ways 
of saving money. They never put a green man 
on salary. Make him pay for his own appren- 
ticeship you know. When he gets to know the 
ropes the question is merely if he’s strong 
enough to fight efforts to economize at his ex- 
pense.” 

“Say, there’s tricks in all trades, isn’t they? 
And the felly what has to work for somebody 
else usually gets it in the neck. But even $100 
a week sounds mighty good to me for just going 


A REPORTER’S EDUCATION 161 


around and looking up interesting things and 
writing something about them. Say, if you had 
a boy and wanted him to be a newspaper man 
what would you make him learn ?” 

“Everything,” said Phil with a laugh. “Of 
course I don’t mean exactly that, hut there isn’t 
any kind of knowledge from tango to trigo- 
nometry that a reporter doesn’t once in awhile 
feel the need of. A newspaper man has to 
know something about everything, and it is the 
unfortunate fact about his calling that it seldom 
leaves him time to learn any one thing thor- 
oughly. 

“But if I had a dad who was a policeman I’d 
learn more from him to begin with than I ever 
could from school. I’d make him teach me all 
about the department and its methods, and all 
about this enormous mysterious city. Why 
you see and hear about things enough every 
week down here in this crowded foreign section 
to make the fortune of a writer. But so far as 
school is concerned, I ’d make my boy learn how 
to write clearly and tersely — and the very best 
way to learn that is to read good writers and 
to try every day to write an account of some- 
thing that interests you. You can’t write well 
without constant practice any more than that 
big copper who put the shot further than any 
competitor in the Olympic games in Copenhagen 


162 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

last year could have done it without practice 
and keeping everlastingly at it. And he ought 
to learn shorthand too — not too much but 
enough to help in making notes of things he 
sees and hears. Why do I say ‘not too much?’ 
Well, I’ll tell you. A man who has a thorough 
knowledge of shorthand has a good career 
open to him — but not on a newspaper. He may 
get to be a court, or legislative reporter, or he 
may become secretary to some big man or cor- 
poration if he looks out for employment of that 
class. But on a newspaper he will find himself 
getting sent to banquets, meetings, investigat- 
ing committees and that sort of thing and being 
shut out of the general assignments which give 
to the true reporter a knowledge of the world 
that makes him valuable in any post. If I 
knew shorthand I’d use it and with great ad- 
vantage to myself, but I wouldn’t let the office 
know too much about it. 

“Then languages. The ability to speak any 
one of those which are common among our for- 
eign residents multiplies the value of a re- 
porter by two. History, particularly that of the 
last twenty-five years that nobody has yet put 
in a book, is useful too, and a smattering of law 
as well. Of course if a man wants to work up 
into one of the Departments like Wall Street, 


A REPORTER’S EDUCATION 163 


the dramatic, music or art, sports or politics 
he has to specialize on those features of 
life.” 

“And the poor gossoon I’ve got!” cried the 
officer in mock dismay. “Sure you’d have him 
studying things till he was gray before he 
asked for a job.” 

Phil laughed. 

“Perhaps I was a bit too comprehensive in 
my list of things a reporter ought to learn. 
But cheer up. Mighty few of them have ever 
taken the course I recommend. Most of them 
are still learning, and it’s one good thing about 
my calling that we don’t ever quit learning. 
Reporters may go broke — in fact that’s the 
common state of most of us — but at least they 
don’t get rusty.” 

“I was a thinking,” said the friendly officer, 
“that when me boy comes out of school ye 
might help him to get a start as copy boy — 
was it ye said?” 

“Sure I will, if I’m on the job still and I think 
I will be. My name’s Phil Derby and you’ll 
probably find me at The Blade ” — “hope it will 
be as the star reporter by that time,” continued 
Phil sotto voce to himself. 

“Yes,” he continued as an idea occurred to 
him, “I will certainly do that for you if you 


164 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

remember to ask me, and now I want you to 
do something for me.” 

“Aha, young felly, that’s politics. That’s 
just like old Tammany Hall. You help me and 
I help you. Well, what is ye want now? 

Shoot.” 

“You see that tenement about three doors 
down Hester street? Yes? Well up in the 
room in the third floor front are a couple of 
fellows I want to ask a few questions. They 
won’t like the questions, but they are things 
The Blade wants to know. It isn’t a police 
case, and I can’t ask you to leave your post 
and go up there with me, but it would make 
me more comfortable, and would take away that 
feeling of a knife stuck in my back if I knew 
you knew that I was up there and were keeping 
an ear open for anything that sounded like a 
fight. Let’s see. It’s about nine o’clock now 
and you said you went off duty at ten. Suppose 
I drop into that coffee shop a minute and have 
a hot cup. You can’t join me? No? Well, 
then when I come out I’ll go over to the tene- 
ment and give you the high sign as I pass. I 
am going to the third floor. If the fellows 
aren’t there, or I can’t get in I’ll come right 
back and report. If I stay and you hear any 
racket for the Lord’s sake come a running. 
And if everything is quiet and I don’t come 


A REPORTER’S EDUCATION 165 


back before you go off just come up there and 
see if anything has happened to me.” 

“Well I suppose that’s all right. I’m not 
supposed to stand around here and help nice 
young fellys to get into trouble, and from what 
you say I guess there may be trouble mixed up 
with this. Don’t you want a plain clothes man 
to go up with you? I could phone to head- 
quarters and have Joe Mora here in a jiffy, and 
he knows every wop in the ward and makes 
them eat out of his hand. No? Well, all right. 
I like to see a lad with pep and you’ve got it. 
If it’s real trouble ye get into there don’t be 
too slow about making a noise. Them Eye- 
talians is mighty quick with a knife and I don’t 
want the felly that’s going to get my young 
Tom a job laid out first.” 

“Don’t worry about me,” laughed Phil, and 
started off for the coffee shop. He had in his 
mind the outline of a plan for rescuing his 
friend and saving the story as well, and needed 
a few minutes free from the kindly talkative- 
ness of the big policeman to formulate it. 


CHAPTER XII 


THE ENEMY WEAKENS 

Meantime in the room extending across the 
front of the Hester Street tenement a drama 
was being enacted which it would have given 
Phil keen enjoyment to witness. 

The room itself was barely furnished with 
a tattered rug on the floor, a cheap dining 
room table and a few chairs as its main arti- 
cles of furniture. A dark alcove, almost the 
full width of the main room, opened to the rear 
without window or other means of ventilation. 
In it were a pine bed, a dresser littered with 
dirty articles of clothing, and a chair or two. 
In the front room was a greasy gas stove which 
indicated that the tenants had been in the habit 
of cooking thereon, though at this time it was 
burning for the purpose of doing its insuffi- 
cient best to heat the apartment. 

Three men were in the front room, one of 
whom was securely fastened to the chair in 
which he sat. From the bed in the alcove came 
sounds of inarticulate groanings, occasional 
oaths and prayers commingled, and the rus- 
166 


THE ENEMY WEAKENS 


167 


tling of a heavy and restless body. The two 
men who were at liberty were sitting at the 
table studying with bent and wrinkled brows 
a piece of paper which seemed to be greatly 
disturbing them. The only person of the three 
visible who seemed to be at all in a cheerful 
mood was the one tied to the chair, and his 
gaiety seemed to only add to the gloom of the 
others. 

This was of course Jim Holbrook, who, ex- 
cept for a somewhat rough and stubbly chin 
and clothes sadly in need of a valet ’s attention, 
showed no serious signs of having been a pris- 
oner to the Black Hand for two nights. If he 
was at all worried by his situation he carefully 
refrained from showing it. On the contrary 
he was railing at his captors in a tone of gay 
jocularity that did not seem to sit at all well 
on their Italian nerves. As they pored over 
the mysterious paper and conferred in hushed 
tones they seemed a very different pair from 
the two . whom Phil had seen enjoying their 
coffee the night before. 

“Well, my fine Italian friends,’ ’ cried Hol- 
brook laughing at their air of worry. “You 
don’t seem to like the taste of your own med- 
icine. Why should you be bothered because 
somebody tacks up a Black Hand on this beau- 
tiful villa of yours? Perhaps it’s some of 


168 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

your own pals. Maybe they’re hungry for that 
$10,000 you thought you were going to get out 
of our friend Salvatore in there.” 

At this the noise of commingled prayer and 
blasphemy from the bed in the alcove grew 
notably louder. 

“Just listen to him. He doesn’t like the 
thought any more than you like that picture 
you are looking at. Who do you think sent 
you the valentine ? I thought all Italians were 
artists, but if I couldn’t draw a simple thing 
like a hand with a dagger through it better 
than that I ’d hire a scene painter to do it. 

“You Italians are a sloppy lot of conspir- 
ators anyway. Here you’ve got Salvatore 
who has a lot of money and you don’t know 
how to get it away from him, and you’ve got 
me who never had any money and you don’t 
know how to get rid of me. You know there 
isn’t much sense in stealing a man just for the 
sake of stealing. What good am I to you here ? 
You’ve only stirred up against you the most 
dangerous enemy a crook or any other kind of 
a man can have — the press of New York. 
When the police come along and pick you up, 
as they will pretty quick, you’ll have every 
paper in New York hollering for you to be 
made an example of. It’s up the river for you 
guys for ten years each at least.” 


THE ENEMY WEAKENS 


169 


“Aw, you shut up," shouted the larger of 
the two Italians rising from the table and ap- 
proaching Jim threateningly. “Plenty of ways 
of getting rid of you. There's a knife in the 
heart, and carry you out in a trunk if we want 
to.” 

‘ 4 Quite so. And a little death house at Sing 
Sing instead of ten years at that up-the-river 
resort for you, eh? I know well enough that 
you won't do anything of the sort. That paper 
posted on your door tells you that somebody 
knows what is up in this room. You don't be- 
lieve any more than I do that that notice was 
posted by any of your people. They would 
not have said ‘Grive them up.' Some Yankee 
did that. Most likely some man from my own 
office who's onto you and watching you right 
now. What you fellows better do is to plan 
for your own getaway. What'll you give Sal- 
vatore and me if we '11 promise not to squeal ? ' ' 

“No getta fresh,” growled the second of 
their captors. “We lock you in here and go 
out. ' ' 

“He was about to suit the action to the word 
when he let up the blind to the window and 
looked out. 

“Carramba! Pietro. Look quick! Zee po- 
liss! And that boy talking with heem. You 
know heem ? No ? He is the boy you gave the 


170 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

letter to the other night. Next day I see him 
around garage. He is track us.” 

“'Come away from the window,” said Pietro 
supporting the words with a pull at his shoul- 
der. Pull the blind. Now quiet. I want to 
think. ’ ’ 

Holbrook who had observed their trepida- 
tion, but had heard only the last words 
regarded them quizzically. 

“Yes, let him think. He needs it. If he 
doesn’t think to some purpose now he’ll have 
ten years up the river with nothing to do but 
to think. What did you see out the window, 
Pietro, old sport? I’ll bet it was The Blade 
staff of photographers waiting to take pictures 
of you when I haul you out. That’s the way 
you’ll go if you keep me tied up here much 
longer. And old Salvatore too. It’s a shame 
to treat him the way you have. You ought 
to give him $10,000 for the worry you’ve 
given him. Come on. What’s money between 
friends?” 

“I have thought, signor. You are a fool. 
The other man is a coward. Why should we be 
afraid of either fools or cowards? You talk 
much, but what have you said except to make 
the josh as you Yankees say? 

“We have you here, locked up among our 
friends. Nobody here will betray us. Our 


THE ENEMY WEAKENS 


171 


friends would not, our enemies dare not. But 
we would be fair. Let that crying donkey over 
there give us a check for $5,000 — half what we 
asked him. When we get it cashed we free 
you both — not here. No. You would print the 
story too quick. But with some friends we 
take you a little way to the country and turn 
you loose. It’s a fine day for the country. 
Now what you say, Salvatore ?” 

“Oh, I’ll give any — ” 

“Keep still, Salvatore. It’s you are the 
fool, not me as this Dago bluffer has just said. 
Don’t you give these fellows a thing. They 
think they’ve got us, but we’ve got them. 
Somebody’s on their trail as that sign posted 
on their door last night shows. They dare not 
kill us as they threaten, and they can’t play 
the game of starving us into surrender as some 
fellows like them did with an old junkman 
some years ago. [Hullo! Does that surprise 
you, Pete? Maybe you were one of those 
fellows. But no, that’s not likely, for they were 
sent up for long terms and would hardly be 
out yet. But that game can’t be played on us 
for starvation takes a long time, and believe 
me you ’ve got to wind this thing up in twenty- 
four hours or you’ll feel the sharp edge of The 
Blade . Don’t promise him anything, Salvatore 
— that is, unless you see the way clear to get- 


172 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

ting out of the promise as you Italians usually 
do.” 

With the curtain draw so that he could look 
through a slit at the edge without exposing 
himself to view outside Pietro had listened to 
Jim’s talk with impatience. The reporter was 
giving him a very bad half hour. But for his 
bracing influ^jice Salvatore would have sur- 
rendered long before. Moreover the Italian 
was shrewd enough to know that the search for 
Holbrook would be far keener, more deter- 
mined and directed with greater ability than 
any that might be made for his original victim. 
He had watched the manner of Mrs. Salvatore 
during the days when his confederates by a 
succession of threatening letters had aroused 
a nameless dread in the banker’s household, 
and he wasi certain that after two days of 
anguish over the fate of her husband she 
would gladly give up any blackmail that he 
might demand* But with this nervy, jeering 
newspaper man at his elbow all the time he 
could hardly compose himself to think out the 
remainder of his campaign, while it was clear 
enough that Holbrook’s influence with the 
banker was sufficient to prevent that abject in- 
dividual from isurrendering at once. The 
more he pondered the less the situation was 
to his liking. After a moment he beckoned 


THE ENEMY WEAKENS 


173 


his confederate to take his place on watch at 
the window, and drew a chair close to that in 
which Holbrook was bound. 

“I was wrong, Mr. Holbrook,” he said in a 
low voice and in what was meant for a con- 
ciliatory manner. “You are not a fool. At 
least I am going to give you a chance to show 
that you are not one.” 

“Bless you for those kind words, my host. 
But what sort of a villainous scheme are you 
going to put up to me now? You aren’t so 
olive-oily for nothing.” 

‘ ‘ Mr. Holbrook, that man Salvatore is a verra 
rich man. He does not work for his money 
like you and me. You chase the news, you 
work hard writing it all out, you up late at 
night and running about all day.” 

“That’s right, Pietro, and sometimes I run 
into mighty curious places and people. But 
what of it?” 

“This Salvatore man he is a banker, and 
what is banker, Mr. Holbrook? Why he is a 
man who takes your money and my money, 
and say he keep it safe for us. And then he 
lend it to other people and make them pay him 
for using our money, and sometimes he lend it 
even to us and make us pay for the very money 
we let him have for nothing. He don’t have 
to work hard like you and me — ” 


174 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

“Say, just speak for yourself, Pete, Pm 
not kicking about having to work too hard. 
Why, youVe just given me a two days’ holiday, 
and after I write the story about your arrest 
and sentence to Sing Sing the paper will be so 
grateful it will let me go to Europe. I’ll see 
Naples before you, Pete.” 

“ Si ! Si ! Signor. Have your little joke if you 
will. But Pietro Bert — I mean Pietra Benda — 
has to work hard for his money. When I wash 
up the motor car, or mend the old engines the 
" banker just sit quiet in his bank reading 
L’ Italia until somebody come in to give money 
for nothing, or to pay him for the use of other 
people’s money.” 

“Well, you’ve surely got novel ideas of the 
business of a banker, Pete. You must have 
made speeches for Billy Bryan back in ’96. 
But what did you start to call yourself just 
now? Pietro Bert — and then you stopped. 
I’ve an idea I heard something once about a 
fellow Pietro Bertelli who got into trouble 
some years ago. You him? Masquerading 
eh?” 

“Ah, non, no! A little excited, that’s all. 
You are so funny, Signor Holbrook. Suppose 
you let me do the talking. I make you one 
gra-a-and proposition. Is it not so?” 

“All right. Shoot in your grand proposi- 


THE ENEMY WEAKENS 


175 


tion. Only I don’t want to talk about any- 
thing that leads me up to the door of the 
Tombs.” 

“ Surely not, Signor Holbrook. You are a 
gentleman. A man of letters is it not? But 
have a little reason. You need money. I 
need money. We all need money except these 
bankers who take all our money without work- 
ing for it. Now this man in there. He will do 
what you say. He was afraid of me, and 
would have given me $10,000 if you had not 
come along and spoiled it all. Why you do 
that, signor? What is it to you if that fat pig 
save his money or give it to me? Your story 
better if I give up than if not — is it not so? 
But what is that little story to you if you can 
make easy money joining me?” 

“Joining you on your way to the peniten- 
tiary, do you mean? I’m not for any excur- 
sion of that sort. Reporting is a hard enough 
job, but it’s a mighty sight better than making 
shoes for several years under lock and key.” 

“Oh, don’t be foolish, signor. Why should 
we be caught?” 

“Because you’re caught already.” 

“Ah, you joke again. Caught only by you. 
Now I give you great chance. You tell this 
fellow he better give up — what you call it in 
English? Come across? You tell him you 


176 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

save him $5,000 by getting us to take half 
what we meant to get from him. Then I give 
you one thousand and Alessandro and I divide 
the rest. We skip. You never see us again. 
He will be grateful to you. fie will always 
remember how you saved him half his money. 
You get thousand dollars for being troubled 
these two days. Better than writing a story, 
hey! Now I go out, and you talk with heem.” 

“Like thunder I will. Look here, you Cam- 
orristic, Mafiastic, Black Hander, what do you 
think I am! A crook like you! You’ll find out 
very differently before long. Save old Sal- 
vatore some money! I’m going to save it all 
for him. Not because I think very much of 
him. He’s a cowardly old idiot rolling about 
on the bed in there and ready to grovel before 
you bandits. I don’t care if he hears me. 
But his wife’s a nice woman and his daughter’s 
a peach and I’m going to see to it that you don’t 
take the bread out of their mouths. And I’m 
going to see you either sent up the river, or a 
fugitive from the country without any of that 
old man’s money to pay your way. Just re- 
member that, Pete.” 

“You think so, do you!” sneered the other 
now thoroughly angered as his failure to se- 
cure the reporter for an accomplice became 


THE ENEMY WEAKENS 


177 


evident. “You think you do very tine big 
things, hey? But first you’ve got to get out of 
here. How about that? You remember the 
bunch that pulled you out of that car the other 
night? Oh, you talked just as big then, and 
you put up one good fight I will say that. But 
they handled you, and here you are tied to a 
chair with Sandro there and me on guard. 
Suppose we just leave you here, and take the 
old man along with us somewhere else. Plenty 
places down here where friends will be glad 
to see us and keep their mouths shut. You 
get very hungry before any one find you, and 
the old man he give up his money quick with 
you out of the way. Perhaps a hot poker or 
the thing you smooth horses with — corrie comb 
isn’t it — might help him to make up his mind 
quick. We’ll get the crowd and move him after 
dark. You stay here and think about it till 
then. Now Sandro and me, we go over and 
get some hot coffee for us.” 

“Allow me to get it for you,” said a strange 
young voice breaking in on the colloquy. All 
turned swiftly toward the door which had been 
quietly opened. On the threshold stood Phil 
grinning broadly. 

“I’m here, Mr. Holbrook,” he said in the 
most matter of fact way. 


178 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

Jimmie returned the grin with interest. 

4 ‘ Sorry Phil , 9 7 he said. ‘ ‘ My copy ’s not quite 
ready. Would you mind waiting a moment 
for it!” 


CHAPTER XIII 


HUNTED DOWN 

Hazed by this unexpected apparition Pietro 
dropped heavily into a chair and sat staring 
stupidly at Phil who stood in the door a smile 
on his face but with an air of obvious deter- 
mination. The other Italian let fall the win- 
dow shade from behind which he had been keep- 
ing watch on the policeman across the way, 
and moved over toward his chief. The two 
showed in their faces amazement at this sud- 
den discovery that they had been detected and 
that their plot was on the verge of defeat. 

Holbrook kept up for the benefit of his recent 
jailers his attitude of gay refusal to recognize 
any menace to himself in the situation at any 
time. 

“I suppose the office wondered why it didn’t 
get the rest of my copy,” said he to Phil in 
the most matter of fact way. “But you see the 
hospitality of my friend Pietro here — meet Mr. 
Bertelli, Mr. Derby — was so insistent that I 
really had to give up literary work for a day 
or two. You never saw such a host, Phil. He 

179 


180 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

literally lias not left me a moment to myself, 
and he has become so fond of me that just be- 
fore you came in he was offering to take me in 
on one of his big business enterprises. I hope 
you’ll come to know him better, Phil. He’ll 
make your fortune. We are only gettin $8 a 
column on The Blade now and this genial phil- 
anthropist has offered me a thousand dollars 
for just a few minutes work. Maybe if you’ll 
be good to him he will take you into his syn- 
dicate.” 

Bertelli’s smile had by this time given place 
to dark scowls. He rose to his feet and con- 
fronted Holbrook threateningly. 

“You keep your mouth shut now. I’m tired 
of all this noise from you. Think yourself out 
of this scrape, do you? Well, I’ll show you. 
Quick, Sandro.” 

And at the word he seized Phil in his arms 
while the other Italian sprang to guard the 
door. 

“We’ll just tie this fellow too,” said the 
leader as he forced Phil back against the wall. 

The boy made no resistance, a fact which 
somewhat surprised the Italian who had noted 
his adversary’s sturdy build and had antici- 
pated something of a struggle. Holbrook, too, 
who had instinctively strained at his bonds at 
the first sign of a fracas, wondered why so 


HUNTED DOWN * 181 

husky a youth should submit so tamely to 
assault. 

Phil speedily put doubts at rest. 

“If you are wise you won’t try that game,” 
said he quietly. 

“Oh, you think so, do you? Sandro, bring 
me another bit of rope.” 

“ Before you do it, Sandro, look out of the 
window and tell your pal what you see out 
there ! ’ ’ 

Sandro hesitated a moment and then at a 
nod from his chief raised the curtain a little. 

“The poliss again,” he said in a warning 
tone. “He looking this way, at this very 
window . 9 9 

Pietro growled out an unintelligible Italian 
oath, and looked in Phil’s face without releas- 
ing his hold upon him. 

“You see,” said that youth cheerfully. “I 
wasn’t fool enough to come up here without 
providing for my getaway. The cop’s a friend 
of mine, and he knows I’m here.” 

“Well, what of it? He’s over there, you’re 
here. How you going to get him, hey?” 

“He’ll come a-runnin if I let out a holler, 
and you can’t be quick enough to stop me be- 
fore I cry out. Let go of me now or out comes 
a yell.” 

“Good hoy, Phil,” cried Holbrook, “If he 


182 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

gets yon by the windpipe before your whole 
yell is out I’ll finish it up for you. Say, Pete, 
I used to be yell-master at our college games.* ’ 

The Italian dropped his hold on Phil but 
gave him a shove that sent him to the side of 
the room furthest from the window. Then 
leaning, against the door so that none might 
get at it he contemplated his prisoners malevo- 
lently. 

“You fellows just try to give an alarm and 
I’ll spoil your faces before the cop can get here. 
If I’ve got to be taken I’ve nothing to lose. 
The police got my record already. I’ll get it 
heavy enough from the court anyway — won’t 
be any worse if I get even with you for spoiling 
my play.” 

‘ ‘ Got your record, have they, Pete ! ’ ’ said Jim 
mightily interested. “What for!” 

“You guessed it before. I’m Pete Benda. 
Just out about tree monts. Police get me on 
this case I get ten years sure. Don't you think 
I’ll let them get me easy. If you holler Sandro 
and I will cut up your faces anyway. Won’t 
cost any more than to get caught as it is. See 
here,” turning to Phil. “'Can’t you call oft 
your cop so Sandro and I can get out! I of- 
fered your friend a thousand dollars to stand 
in on this deal, but he’s afraid. More fool 
he, Bpt whut do you want to get us into trou- 


HUNTED DOWN 


183 


ble for? We didn't hurt you, and except that 
we keep him all night we haven’t hurt your 
friend. Ask him. And we haven’t hurt Sal- 
vatore either — only scare the sense out of him. 
He didn’t have much anyway, no more than 
most bankers. Now why not let us skip? 
Hey?” 

“Now look here, Pete,” broke in Holbrook. 
“You can just let me handle this thing. Phil 
there’s young yet, and hasn’t had the expe- 
rience with fellows like you that I have. You ’ve 
tried to put over a rotten game on that poor 
Italian fellow in there, and what you planned 
to do with me if I’d been easier to handle I 
don’t know. Now you say you’ve done time 
for a trick like this once before. How do we 
know you won’t try the same thing oyer again 
if we wink at your getting away now? For 
you can’t get away unless we say so. Isn’t 
that a fact, Phil?” 

“That’s the fact, and it may interest him 
to know that my agreement with the officer 
down there is that if I don’t come back to re- 
port to him by ten oclock, when he goes off 
duty, he’s to come up here and smash in the 
door.” 

“How the devil did you know which room 
we were in?” growled Benda. 

“I was watching when you came in last night 


184 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

from the coffee shop with those bundles of 
grub. I was looking over the rail from the 
floor above.” 

“So you’re the fellow that stuck that sign 
on the door are you? What did you want to 
do that for?” 

“Oh, just to let you see that you didn’t have 
any patent on the Black Hand picture. Did 
it scare you?” 

“Scare them, Phil!” cried Holbrook in glee. 
“You ought to have seen them when they 
brought it in this morning. Sandro’s face 
would have been as pale as a ghost’s if he hadn’t 
been too dirty for the pallor to show through, 
and as for your friend Bertelli — beg your par- 
don, Signor Benda, late of the Palazzo Sing 
Sing — well he studied that poster as if it were 
another warrant for the delivery of his body 
to the warden. But say Phil, you’ve got to 
learn to draw better if you’re going into that 
line of business. I couldn’t tell whether it was 
a Black Hand with a dagger through it, or a 
bug of the kind that keep us company here 
stuck through with a pin. Anyway it feazed 
our friend here so badly that he wanted to quit 
right away, and offered me that thousand to 
help him out. Say Pete, don’t you think you 
might just as well untie my arms now? It 


HUNTED DOWN 185 

isn’t keeping me tight now that’s bothering 
yon, but how to get loose yourself.” 

With a grunt of acquiescence the Italian 
stooped and cut his bonds, and Jim rose, 
stretched himself luxuriously, and began to 
sing in a low tone : 

Blest be the tie that binds, 

Dum dnm de iddle dee, 

The fellowship of kindred minds 
Like Peye — ee — tro and me: 

“What time is it now, Phil? Oh, here’s my 
own watch. Of course Pete didn’t take it. 
He’s no piker. Pocket books and watches are 
not his game. All he wants is the entire cap- 
ital of the bank. Well, it’s nine-thirty. Do 
I understand that we receive the police at ten?” 

“That’s the hour set,” responded Phil. 
“You see the officer goes off at ten, and volun- 
teered to stop in as a mere friendly accommo- 
dation. ’ ’ 

“Does he know the whole story?” asked Hol- 
brook, speaking low, so that the Italian might 
not hear. “That you knew these fellows had 
Salvatore and me here under duress, and were 
trying to blackmail Salvatore?” 

“No. You see Mr. Bowers wanted this kept 
from the police so as we could work up the 


186 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

story ourselves, and get a scoop on it. So he 
gave the assignment to Mr. Yates. I haven’t 
any business to be here at all. You know I’m 
only a copy boy, Mr. Holbrook, so I couldn’t 
get the regular assignment. But this is my day 
off and I thought I’d see if I couldn’t do a 
little sleuthing on my own.” 

‘ ‘ So. And a very pleasant idea you have of 
a day off, Phil. You’ve come pretty near get- 
ting your face slashed up, or pounded out of 
shape by these fellows. I suppose if that’s 
what you pick for a pleasant day off, on a 
week’s vacation you’d go somewhere where you 
could be starved to death, or buried alive. 
Base ball or the movies for my days off. But 
I suppose you wanted to be your own movies.” 

“No, but you see, Mr. Holbrook, I want to 
be a reporter. I’ve been a copy boy too long 
now. And Mr. Bowers is always promising me 
a chance and forgetting all about it. So I 
thought when I brought down that Black Hand 
from you — ” 

“Hold on. What’s that about a Black Hand 
from me? You mean my story of Salvatore’s 
bank ? ’ ’ 

“Oh, of course you wouldn’t know.” And 
therewith Phil told Jimmie the tale of the lost 
story and the mysterious Black Hand. The re- 
porter turned in wrath to Pietro. 


HUNTED DOWN 


187 


“You know I ought to turn you over to the 
police for just that. To steal a reporter’s 
story! The meanest crook wouldn’t do that. 
It’s meaner than stealing candy from a kid. 
But what the dickens did you go and stick that 
Black Hand stuff in the envelope for? If you 
did not want the story to reach the office you 
could have told Phil that I’d forgot to leave it, 
and then I’d have been the goat. Instead of 
that you go and put up a play-acting stunt that 
gets the office excited and sets the whole staff 
chasing you. That ’s the trouble with you Ital- 
ians. You always think of doing something 
dramatic. What did you do it for? Just tell 
me that?” 

“Well just for the fun. I think of the man who 
get the envelope. He open it in great hurry. 
He think he get big story from his, what you 
call it Star reporter? And what he find? 
That the Italian Black Hand have made mon- 
key of him. Aha! I laugh. That worth the 
trouble. Besides I could not let you go on 
hunting for Salvatore. Sometime you find 
him, tell the poliss and all off — just like that.” 

“So being afraid of my finding Salvatore you 
get your gang to jump on me in that moldy 
old bus, tie me up and bring me where I would 
never have thought of looking for Salvatore. 
And now you’ve got us both, and don’t know 


188 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

what to do with us. And I’ve got you and 
don’t know what to do with you. How long 
before that cop will be dropping in here, Phil? 
About twenty minutes? Then we’ve got to 
think quick.” 

He beckoned Phil and the two went into the 
back room, from which Salvatore emerged look- 
ing pale and worn. 

“Ah, signore,” he pleaded. “Can you not 
rescue me from these men? I know what they 
can do. I have seen it in Italy. Do not try to 
punish them but let me pay all I can and go 
free. I cannot pay all they ask — it would break 
my bank, but I am willing to pay much. Let 
me tell their chief that I will pay.” 

“Oh, quiet down, Toni,” answered Holbrook 
in a not unfriendly tone. “It’s just such cow- 
ards as you that make this business of extor- 
tion among your people possible. Don’t worry. 
You shall not be hurt, nor shall you have to pay 
anything. Don’t promise to pay anything to 
those fellows while my friend and I have a little 
talk.” 

“Now Phil,” he continued in a low voice. 
“If we let this thing come to a head now, and 
turn these fellows over to your friend when he 
comes up here in ten minutes the story will 
break at once and the afternoon papers will 
get it.” 


HUNTED DOWN 


189 


“But he doesn’t know the story,” said Phil. 

1 ‘ 1 only told him that I was coming up here to 
look up a matter, and that some Italians might 
get ugly so that I wished he would come 
and get me out if I didn’t report in good 
shape.” 

“Good boy. You handled that just right. 
Now let’s think what to do. Of course you can 
go out and tell the cop everything is all right. 
Then he will go away none the wiser. But 
that leaves us alone with these fellows. We 
could handle them easily enough except for the 
fact that they are armed, and besides this rook- 
ery is full of their friends. That’s the kind of 
a risk we have to take every now and then in 
our business however.” 

“They haven’t any use for us anyway,” said 
Phil. “That fellow Bertelli or Benda, or what- 
ever his comic opera name may be, must be 
pretty well persuaded that his game is up, that 
he can’t get any money from Salvatore, and 
that the chief thing for him is to save his own 
skin. ’ ’ 

“Yes we might play on his fears; tell him, 
for instance, that if he will let Salvatore go 
you will go down and tell your friend the police- 
man that you don’t need him. We can assure 
him that we ’ll not betray him to the authorities 
and he will be confident enough that he can 


190 PHILIP DERBY, EEPORTER 

terrorize Salvatore into silence. The only 
question is whether he would take our promise 
as worth anything.” 

“But ought we to make any such promise. 
These fellows have committed a crime and were 
only prevented from accomplishing it by you 
and me. We’re in the place of two detectives. 
Do we want now to connive at the escape of the 
criminals we have caught? Isn’t it our duty 
to have them arrested and punished?” 

“Well, yes and no. Our immediate duty is 
to our paper. Of course if these fellows had 
actually done a serious wrong we ought to give 
them up. But all they’ve done is to throw a 
scare into some wops, give me an interesting 
experience and that’s what reporters live for, 
and give you a chance to earn a reporter’s job. 
Besides we know them now, know their methods 
and their haunts. If another job like this is 
tried on we can show the police how to get the 
crooks. Come on now. Time’s short and I’ll 
show you how to save our story.” 

Returning to the front room, Holbrook spoke 
to the two Italians who were gloomily watching 
the policeman through the shaded window. 

“Well, you fellows. Your game is up. You 
know it, don’t you Pete?” 

Pete grunted incoherently and shook his 
head, 


HUNTED DOWN 


191 


‘ ‘Yes, you know it well enough, but you hate 
to admit it. In five minutes that officer you 
are looking at will be pounding at this door. 
If we tell him what you have been doing in the 
last forty-eight hours he’ll have you in the 
hurry wagon headed for the Tombs and Sing 
Sing in no time. You know what you are 
likely to get after that other job you pulled off. 
Now there are just two ways you can keep us 
•quiet. One is to kill us before the cop gets 
here. But that would make a terrible mess and 
he ’d be sure to catch you, and you ’d have some- 
thing worse than holding up a banker to an- 
swer for. So I guess you’ll agree with us that 
that won’t work. The other way is to make 
a deal with us.” 

Pietro’s face brightened perceptibly. He 
took a step toward Holbrook with beaming 
eyes, and a countenance full of hope. 

“Ah, si, Signor Holbrook. I was sure you 
would not be a fool. That thousand. I will 
make it a little more to take in your friend 
here.” 

“Climb down, Pete, and forget it. There’s 
no thousand for me and no crooked money for 
you. That’s the first part of our deal. Now 
don’t look sulky and cut up rough. You’re 
beat. Here’s your medicine. This boy, Phil, 
will go out now and take Salvatore with him. 


192 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

He’ll stop to talk with the policeman and tell 
him everything is smooth and pleasant up here 
and he won’t be needed. You can swear Sal- 
vatore to secrecy on some of your queer Ital- 
ian oaths — chop off the head of a chicken? No, 
that’s Chinese — and let him go. I know you 
can keep him as still as a busted phone. He’ll 
go home. Phil will go to that coffee shop and 
bring us up some breakfast — you haven’t fed 
us yet and I’m ugly on an empty stomach. 
Then we’ll talk the rest of it over while we 
drink our coffee. What do you say to that, 
Pietro ? ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ I give up my man and get no mone ? Think 
me a fool?” 

“ You ’ll be worse than a fool if you don’t. 
You’ll be a convict. You might as well take 
your medicine. How do you expect to get away 
with a cop due at the door in three minutes?” 

i ‘ How do I know that boy not give whole 
thing away to cop when he goes out?” 

“You’ve got me here for a hostage. Watch 
out of the window and if after Phil sees him 
the cop doesn’t go off his beat up the street 
you’ll know he has played you false and can 
skip out the back way — and do me first if you 
want to.” 

“But—” 


HUNTED DOWN 193 

“I said three minutes just now. There are 
only two left.” 

“Well, verra well. But I go with Salvatore 
and the boy. Sandro stay here and watch you 
till I come back. You there!” and he jerked 
his head with an ugly look toward Salvatore 
who pale and trembling joined him in the back 
room. After a moment’s intent whispering on 
the part of Pietro, and earnest protestations 
from the terror-stricken banker, they threw on 
coats and hats and went out. Watching from 
the window, which he no longer took the trouble 
to keep shaded, Jimmie saw them go up to the 
policeman, to whom Phil spoke while the two 
Italians held aloof. Then they walked on down 
to the corner and turned into Mulberry Street. 
He turned to his guard. 

“Sandro, do you know what a sucker is?” 

The Italian looked vague. 

‘ ‘ Oh, why don ’t you ginneys speak a civilized 
language? He’s the goat you know. The 
sucker is the fellow who holds the bag while the 
other guy gets away with the stuff. Under- 
stand that? No? Well do you understand 
this?” 

And therewith he drew the door wide open 
and motioned the other to leave. But the 
Italian made no move. 


194 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

“Listen now. Yonr pal has skipped. He 
won’t come back. First thing you know the 
police will come and arrest you. Aha, you 
understand that. Police! Prison! That’s for 
you. Why don’t you run away?” 

With a grin of comprehension the Italian 
caught up his hat and dashed down the stairs. 
Watching from the window Jim saw him look 
warily over toward the spot at which the police- 
man had been standing, and then run down the 
street in a direction opposite to that taken by 
Phil and Pietro. 

“I guess that ends it,” said Jim. “Now when 
Phil comes back he and I will get together on 
the story.” 

But had he been able to look into the coffee 
shop at that moment he would have been less 
confident that his carefully laid plans to hold 
the story for The Blade exclusively were goiing 
to work. 


CHAPTER XIV 


AN UNDESIRED AID 

At the door of the coffee shop the three men 
parted, Salvatore with many protestations of 
eternal silence starting for his home. The 
other two entered the shop and sat down at a 
table. Phil ordered coffee for both and 
Pietro, in Italian, supplemented the order with 
a demand for coffee in a bottle, and some bread 
to be taken to the prisoners he had left behind. 

Phil was fairly exultant. The mystery that 
had perplexed older heads than his at the office 
had been solved and by his efforts alone. He 
had the complete confidence in the ability of 
Holbrook that the cub feels for the star re- 
porter, and he felt certain that even had he not 
come to the rescue Jimmie would have wriggled 
out of his captivity in some way. But all the 
same he was glad that it had been left to him to 
actually ferret out the hiding place of the kid- 
napers and the missing reporter. To begin 
with he was sure it would promote him to the 
reportorial staff at once. Perhaps he would 
even be allowed to write part of this story, al- 
195 


196 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

though Jim as the star actor would probably 
write the greater part of it. He remembered 
the stolen story by Holbrook now at his room, 
and wondered if the writer would want it when 
he came to write the greater story of his abduc- 
tion and rescue. Then suddenly Phil re- 
membered Yates. What about his efforts?* 
He was certainly on the trail in some way for 
Phil had seen him peering into the window of 
this very shop, and the policeman had told of 
talking to him about the Italian colony. 

Phil began to wonder whether by any chance 
Yates had got further along with the story 
than he, and whether on his return to the office, 
which he had planned for that afternoon he 
would be greeted with the chilling direction, 
“G-o tell Mr. Yates what you have. He’s in 
charge of the story.’ ’ 

It was not a cheering reflection for Phil but 
he speedily put it out of his mind with the 
thought that whatever Yates might have 
learned on the outside he had found neither 
Salvatore, the abductors, nor Jim Holbrook. 
For they had all been under Phil’s observation 
all day, and he knew they could not have been 
seen by any one without his knowing it. So he 
felt that the best end of the story was his. 

While the Italian across from him gulped 
the steaming coffee Phil hardly sipped his so 


AN UNDESIRED AID 


197 


engrossed was his mind with the pictures he 
was drawing of his triumph. He planned that 
after turning the two culprits loose, with the 
certainty that they could be had again when 
wanted, he and Jim would make their way to 
the office and show up about the time of the 
afternoon editorial conference. The picture 
was vivid in his mind. They would arrive just 
as Mr. Bowers would be forced to confess that 
he and his staff had been unable to unravel the 
mystery. Probably the managing editor would 
get impatient by that time, and would 
curtly order that the matter should be turned 
over to the police. At that juncture Phil 
would appear arm in arm with Holbrook, and 
they two would tell the story of the star re- 
porter’s abduction and the copy boy’s success- 
ful search for him. It was a beautiful picture, 
and Phil was deep in his enjoyment of it when 
a hand was laid on his shoulder and a voice 
said, 

“ Hello, Derby. What in the world are you 
doing here, and with that crook above all men?” 

Phil turned hastily. Pietro started angrily 
to his feet. Behind the former stood the re- 
porter Bob Yates with a puzzled expression on 
his face. 

“Do you know that fellow is an ex-convict, 
Phil, and that I believe he is mixed up in the 


198 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

disappearance of Jimmie Holbrook? What 
are yon lunching with him for?” 

Phil was too dazed for a moment to i*fcply, 
but the Italian was blazing with rage and made 
as though he would spring at the newcomer. 

4 ‘What do you mean by calling me crook? 
Who are you anyway? Get out of my road. 
I don’t want to talk with you.” 

“Not so fast,” responded Yates, blocking 
his path as he strove to push past. “I’ve got 
some business with you. You can answer me 
a few questions right now.” 

“I’ll answer nothing. I don’t know you. 
I’ve got to take this up to a friend.” He 
grasped the bottle of hot coffee more as though 
he intended using it as a weapon than as if it 
were part of a friend’s breakfast. 

“You stay right here! What I want to 
know is WHERE IS JIM HOLBROOK OF 
THE BLADE , THE REPORTER YOU AB- 
DUCTED?” 

“Aaah, that damn reporter,” ejaculated 
Pietro sinking into his chair with an air of com- 
bined rage and disgust on his face. Phil 
roared with laughter. The solemn emphasis 
of Yates’s inquiry and the Italian’s intense dis- 
gust struck him as funny, knowing as he did 
that the mystery was solved and that Holbrook 
was safe and ready again for action. 


AN UNDESIRED AID 


199 


More perplexed by Phil’s laughter than by 
the curious expression of the Italian Yates 
stared at the two a moment. 

“ Maybe you’ll talk when I tell you that I’m 
a friend of Joe Mora?” he said. “And if that 
isn’t enough perhaps you’d like to tell me some- 
thing about this excellent picture of yourself, ’ ’ 
and he pulled out and displayed to the Italian 
the print he had taken from the Rogues’ Gal- 
lery. 

“Joe Mora!” gasped the Italian and fell 
back into his seat. Yates turned to Phil for 
light. 

“What in the world is the meaning of all 
this?” he demanded. “You know of course 
that Jim Holbrook has vanished. You were 
the boy that brought the stutf that had been 
substituted for his copy. Mr. Bowers put me 
on the story, and working it up I find that a 
fellow named Pete Benda who went to the pen 
once for Black-Handing was the garage keeper 
who gave you the phony copy. So I start to 
find this bird Benda and here I find you having 
breakfast with him as pleasant as you please. 
What’s your little game? Maybe you know 
where Holbrook is?” 

“Well I do, if that’s any satisfaction to you,” 
said Phil somewhat nettled at the tone the 
other had seen fit to take. 


200 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

It was now Yates ’s turn to drop into a chair 
in amazement. 

“You do? Why don’t he come back to the 
office? See here, young fellow I don’t know 
just how you got mixed up in this but you are 
likely to get into trouble. I’ve got the police 
with me, and though I haven’t said anything 
definite about this affair they know that I’m 
working on something important and I’ve only 
to say the word to get the detectives out after 
you. This man you ’re with is well known, has 
done time already and the police will be only 
too glad to get something on him.” 

“Oh, don’t get excited,” said Phil. “Come 
down off your high horse! I’ve been working 
on this matter same as you have. The only 
difference is that I found Jim last night and 
have got him safe around the corner. Come 
along and we will let him settle this. Look’s 
as if everybody on The Blade’s staff was going 
to horn in on this story I thought I had got for 
myself. ’ ’ 

“But who put you on the story? You’re not 
on the city staff.” 

“No, but I thought I’d see what I could do 
on my own on my day off. I just wanted to find 
out how smart you stars are anyway. And I 
found Salvatore and Jim while you fellows were 
running around in circles.” 


AN UNDESIRED AID 


201 


“In circles, eh. Didn’t I get on the track 
the very day I was put on the story? I was 
watching this joint the greater part of last 
night for your friend there, and if he’d shown 
up he’d have been in the Tombs by now.” 

“Yes, that’s just the trouble. Mr. Bowers 
wanted this thing worked out without the 
police, and you’ve put them on.” 

“Oh, no, I haven’t. All they know is that I 
was looking for an Italian who seemed to an- 
swer to the description of Pietro Benda, who 
had done time. They don’t know why I 
wanted him. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ All right, ’ ’ said Phil, ‘ 1 and they don ’t know 
I found him either. Perhaps we can keep the 
story for an exclusive. At any rate, come 
along and I’ll show you where we left Jimmie, 
and this man’s accomplice.” 

So turning out info the sharp winter’s morn- 
ing they made their way back to the tenement 
and climbed the stairs. Pushing open the door 
without ceremony they entered. The room 
was empty. 


CHAPTER XV 


UNTANGLING THE SKEIN 

Phil turned in amazement to| Yates. 

“We left Jimmie here not twenty minutes 
ago,” he said, 4 4 together with a wop that Pete 
called 4 Sandro.’ They were to wait until we 
came back with the coffee. We took Salvatore 
with us when we went out, and turned him 
loose. I suppose Pete here made him promise 
by all that is holy to keep quiet about the whole 
matter. What’s become of Jim I can’t guess. 
The man we left with him couldn’t handle him 
alone, and so far as I know none of the other 
people in this tenement are mixed up in this 
affair. Have you got any notion what hap- 
pened, Pete?” 

4 4 Me. Non, no ! I mighty glad that reporter 
gone anyway. He spoiled my whole game. 
And I don’t care what he did with Sandro. 
Sandro a fool anyway. Just as big fool and 
coward as that banker. Now the jig is up. 
Everybody gone. I go too.” 

And he turned as if to leave the room. 

4 4 But here! Hold on!” shouted Yates. 

202 


UNTANGLING THE SKEIN 203 


i 6 What about this, Phil? Are we going to let 
this fellow go now that we’ve got the goods on 
him? You run for a cop while I hold him.” 

“Yep, and have him booked at the station 
at twelve o’clock and the whole story given to 
the evening papers? Not much. There’s been 
too much work done by The Blade on this case 
to divvy up with the rest of Park Row partic- 
ularly with the Evenings. Better let him go 
Mr. Yates. The police can find him again when 
we need him. We’ve got his measure and we 
know his hangout. When the story is ready to 
break we can put the police on if we see fit.” 

“You talk mighty big,” sneered Pietro. 
* ‘ How you think you going to hold me if I want 
to go? You got no cop standing on the corner 
waiting call now. Suppose you get outer w$y 
of this.” And therewith he showed an ugly 
knife as he walked swaggeringly toward the 
door. 

‘ 4 That ’s a pretty good card, Pete, ’ ’ said Phil 
composedly. “But it wouldn’t win if we 
wanted to keep you here. You aren’t dealing 
with a frightened little money lender now. 
Reporters go up against uglier things than that 
in their work. But you might as well go. We 
can get you when we want you.” 

“Yes,” chimed in Yates. “I know just the 
man to find you. He got me that picture I 


204 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

showed you. Look out or well put Joe Mora 
on your trail. ’ ’ 

At first enraged, the Italian bared his teeth 
in a contemptuous grin. 

“Ah, Joe Mora! Si, si, si. You ask him if 
he want to take in Pietro Benda for this job. 
You learn something. Carramba! Pm done. 
You newspaper men maka me seeck. But I 
beat you yet. That fat banker not yet done 
with me. But no more reporters, no, non!” 

“That’s right, Pete,” said Phil laughing. 
“Don’t try any more jokes with Black Hand 
messages on a city editor. If you hadn’t tried 
to be so funny you’d have had Salvatore’s ten 
thousand and might be on the way to Italy now. 
Still there’s one consolation. You’ll have your 
name and perhaps your picture in The Blade 
to-morrow.” 

The Italian snarled at the two and slunk out. 
Then Yates turned to Phil inquiringly. 

“Well, of course you have gone further in 
this matter than I have. What’s your idea 
now?” 

“It looks to me as if we were going to have 
to divide this story up among the three of us — 
that is if I get a look in on it at all,” said Phil 
a little bitterly. “What has become of Jim I 
can’t guess. He was to have waited for us 
here, and Pete left that other Italian to guard 


UNTANGLING THE SKEIN 205 


him although I knew well enough that if Jim 
wanted to get rid of him he would do it. What- 
ever led him to move out he has got the story- 
on his mind — you and I know him well enough 
to know that. Probably he saw a chance to 
pick up a new line on it and had to jump with- 
out notifying me — he didn ’t know you were on 
the job at all. Why wouldn’t it be a scheme 
for us to pick up the loose ends of the lines we 
have got and meet at the office to-night and put 
it all together in one story? Jim is almost 
certain to be there then. If he isn’t we can 
consider what to do.” 

“That would be all right except I’m afraid 
the office has put a deadline on further delay 
on this story. Bowers told me that the old man 
had given him until to-night to find Jim, and 
that if we’d not succeeded by then it must be 
given to the police. He was afraid something 
might happen to Jim. He did not know that 
chunk of nerve.” 

“Well how would it be if we worked up the 
rest of the story and reported at five, just when 
the editorial conference is in session? I think 
we’d be safe in figuring that Jim will turn up 
there about that time. I don’t believe he ’s been 
abducted again for this room does not look as 
though there had been any sort of a scuffle. 
My guess is that he got rid of the dago, and 


206 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

that then something occurred to him that he 
wanted to look up and he went out on the job 
at once.” 

“What more do you want to get on it?” 

“Well, I’ve got Jim’s original story up at my 
room. Oh, I didn’t tell you about that. I got 
a job up at the garage where they played that 
game on him, and while sweeping out I found 
his copy in the waste paper. It covers the 
story of Salvatore’s disappearance in good 
shape, and there was a torn note that enabled 
me to trace Jim down here. Jim may want to 
use it. Then I would like to get a story out of 
the keeper of the coffee shop about the two men 
if he knows them. That’s about all I need to 
get, but of course I’ll write the story of the 
time in the room after I had tracked them 
down. As I have to go up to my room after 
Jim’s stuff I might as well go on up to Sal- 
vatore’s house and get the story of his reception 
by his family and neighbors. I guess the whole 
neighborhood will be burning red fire — that is 
if they are not all too afraid of the Black 
Hand. ’ ’ 

“That sounds all right. I’ll go on back to 
police headquarters and get the story of that 
fellow’s record. Perhaps if I can pick up Joe 
Mora again I can get some human interest stuff 
out of him. But the big end of the story is 


UNTANGLING THE SKEIN 207 


your’s, Phil. You have certainly handled it 
well for a man who isn’t even a cub yet. It 
ought to put you on the staff right off, if 
Bowers is the man I think he is. By the way, 
you mustn’t feel peeved because I was a little 
suspicious of you at first. It did look queer 
to see a Blade man sitting at a table with the 
kidnaper. ’ ’ 

That afternoon, the regular afternoon edi- 
torial at The Blade was on. It was being held 
an hour earlier than usual since the day was 
Saturday and the size of the Sunday editions 
of most city newspapers is so great that they 
plan to go to press an hour or so earlier with 
their first editions in order to get the great bulk 
of the printed matter out of the way. In New 
York, Chicago and some other centers of highly 
congested districts, the supplements, or mis- 
cellany sections of the papers have been sent 
out by express days before so that the country 
newsdealers will have time to sort out the huge 
mass of reading matter in time for Sunday 
delivery. Early news sections called by such 
picturesque names as the ‘ 4 Bull-dog, ’ ’ the 
“Cannon-ball” and the like are made up with 
a Sunday date line and sent off often as early 
as Friday night. It is because of the exagger- 
ated size of the Sunday papers, and the enor- 
mous pressure of advertising upon them that 


208 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

the true journalist regards them as in actual 
worth the worst papers of the week. 

Theodore Roosevelt, who would have been a 
great journalist had he not been a great states- 
man, estimated the Sunday paper at its true 
worth. When he had anything to say to the 
people he carefully held it for publication un- 
til Monday morning when it would not be lost 
in a mad melange of “ads,” “comics,” and 
“Sunday specials.” 

Accordingly this Saturday afternoon the 
conference was under way at about four o’clock. 
The managing editor, Mr. Perkins, was as 
usual in command. 

“What’s the telegraph outlook, Mr. Lee?” 
he asked of the head of the telegraph desk. 

“Well, Washington schedules 1,500 words on 
cabinet possibilities, 1,000 on federal action to 
correct the housing shortage and the possibil- 
ity of some federal indictments of the heads of 
building combines, and a story about Senator 
Blackhurst getting mad and raiding the White 
House because the President’s secretary was 
out at lunch. The Senator thought he could 
get information from the President himself 
about a bill of his waiting signature.” 

‘ 4 Good stuff. Especially the last. Play it on 
the first page. If we don’t get anything bigger 
locally the likelihood of federal indictments in 


UNTANGLING THE SKEIN 209 


the housing business may be worth a three 
column head on the first page. I r d rather have 
a good local story however. What’s in sight 
by cable ?” 

“Long special from Paris about Germany 
refusing to disarm and French apprehensions 
because of it. A. P. story 1 from Geneva on 
heavy expenses of the headquarters of the 
League of Nations. Some good special stuff 
from Landon regarding the growth of the labor 
party in England and the chance of a labor 
minis try/’ 

“Hum. We’ll have to soft pedal on the 
labor stuff. Just now labor isn’t any too pop- 
ular with the owners of this paper. But 
splurge on the Paris despatch. Give it a num- 
ber one head on the first page. France stands 
well with us. Better carry the League story 
on an inside page. Now what have you got in 
a local way, Bowers ? What about your lost re- 
porter!”' 

“I’ve got a corking good immigration story 
from Ellis Island that’s worth a head, and 
there is the continuance of the fight with the 
police department over the crime wave. But 
my lost reporter is still lost. Yates, one of our 
best men, is out on the search for him and I’m 

i “A. P.” is the office phrase for the Associated Press, the 
great cooperative newsgathering organization. 


210 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

expecting a telephone call from him every min- 
ute.” 

“Let’s see, I think it was two days ago Hol- 
brook disappeared wasn’t it?” 

“Yes, and you gave me until to-night to find 
him without the aid of the police. I haven’t 
given up hope yet, but if Yates comes in with- 
out anything to report I will put the matter in 
the hands of the detective bureau. You know 
we aren’t any too strong with the police just 
now. We’ve been pounding them pretty hard 
on the prevalence of crime in the city.”' 

“You don’t suppose they are holding up our 
reporter somewhere to get even with us?” 

“Well, they’d be quite capable of it if they 
knew of the situation, but I don’t believe they 
know anything about it. I told Yates to sound 
them out around police headquarters and re- 
port anything suspicious. Ah, I hear his voice 
out in the city room now. Suppose I have him 
come over and report to us all. Oh, Yates, look 
in here.” 

Yates came over through the big room to 
the corner in which the conference was being 
held. He was closely followed by Phil at 
whom the others looked with some impatience. 
“Anything you want, Derby?” asked Bowers 
in a tone which indicated that unless there was 
something very special wanted he had no busi- 


UNTANGLING THE SKEIN 211 


ness there. But Yates spoke up in response. 

“I brought Phil Derby over with me, Mr. 
Bowers, because he knows more about this case 
than I or any one else. He has done the dandi- 
est bit of detective work on it this office has 
ever known. ’ ’ 

“Fine,” said Bowers, “but before you give 
us the whole story, where is Jim Holbrook?” 

“We don’t know,” responded both the others 
in unison. 

“Don’t know? Then why do you come 
around here talking about detective work? 
Yates you were sent out to find Holbrook and 
for nothing else. Have you come back to re- 
port failure?” 

“No sir, at least not exactly. I found him — 
or rather Phil did, but he went and disappeared 
again. ’ ’ 

“Now what the dickens do you mean by that? 
What is he? A Vanishing Man, like the fellow 
in the story? Have you actually seen him?” 

“Yes sir — that is Phil has.” 

“Phil has? Phil seems to be the whole 
thing in this story. I thought I sent out a star 
reporter to cover this case and it seems that a 
copy boy is the whole cheese. Suppose you 
tell us about it, Derby.” 

“Well sir, I found Mr. Holbrook tied up in a 
tenement house room with two Italians mount- 


212 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

in g guard over him. Salvatore the banker was 
with them. Mr. Holbrook persuaded one of 
the Italians to let Salvatore go, and while I 
went out with the two to fix it with„my friend 
the policeman Jimmie and the other Italian dis- 
appeared. ’ ’ 

“Well, that’s a tine muddle. Phil, if you try 
to write your story the way you tell it you’ll 
have a hard time getting your stuff past the 
copy desk. What two did you go out with? 
How could you fix it with the police ? How did 
you ever find Jim to begin with?” 

“Suppose you let the boy tell his story from 
the beginning in his own way,” interposed the 
managing editor. “And how did he get out 
on the story? Did you have any instructions 
to cover it, Derby?” 

“No sir. You see it was I that the Italian 
at the garage worked with the phony bunch of 
copy. That made me mad to begin with. 
Then the next day was my day o|f, and I 
thought that if I could work up the story in my 
time I might get some credit in the office for the 
job, and get my promotion to the city staff. 
I’m getting pretty big for a copy boy.” 

“I see, and what you did was done on your 
day off, and wholly at your own initiative? 
That’s fine. Now tell us what you accom- 
plished and how.” 


UNTANGLING THE SKEIN 213 


“Well sir, I went back to that garage and got 
a job cleaning np and general handiwork. 
While I was at it I learned that the dago had 
sold out the place and skipped. A car came in 
that had been out all night and I was given the 
job of cleaning it up. It was all scratched and 
the glass window broken as though there had 
been a struggle in it, and I learned that it had 
been rented the night before to an Italian. 
Soon after I found in a pile of waste paper the 
copy of the article which Mr. Holbrook thought 
he was sending down to the office. With it was 
this note to Mr. Bowers. You can see, sir, it 
was pretty badly torn up.” 

Phil handed the fragment to Bowers who 
tried to read it out loud: 

“Dear Mr. Bowers: Here is Salvatore 
story as far as I can get it for first edition. 
Think I am on trail of man. He is not leav- 
ing country, but is a prisoner. Hope to find 
him to-night. Will phone you misleading mes- 
sage as I don’t want the wops around here to 
think I’m on. Will not go to dock but shall 
leave car at er str and look into ce ut 
rry. ’ ’ 

“Yes,” said Bowers as he ended his effort 
to read the fragment out loud, “that does seem 


214 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

to be rather incomplete. How did yon make 
anything out of it?” 

Phil went on to explain how, through his 
knowledge of the streets of the lower East 
Side, he was able to recognize in the disjointed 
letters and parts of street names in Little Italy. 
His discovery of Pietro and his accomplice in 
one of the coffee shops he frankly laid to mere 
luck. As he went on with his story and told 
of his shadowing the men to the tenement lair, 
his enlistment of the policeman’s interest, and 
his final discovery of Salvatore and Holbrook 
in captivity Mr. Bowers looked at him with in- 
creasing interest, and might have been seen to 
give the managing editor a significant nod as 
much as to say ‘ ‘ He ’ll do. ’ ’ 

“ A mighty fine piece of work,” said Mr. 
Perkins enthusiastically when the tale was told. 
‘ 4 And how did you happen to run upon this 
boy’s trail?” he continued turning to Yates. 

“Why I went up to headquarters and saw 
Frank Mather who found a picture in the 
rogues’ gallery that corresponded with one I 
got out of our morgue of an Italian who was 
mixed up in a case of this sort some years ago. 
He put me next to a central station detective, 
one Joe Mora, who told me that the picture was 
a likeness of a fellow who had been running a 
garage up town, and that I’d find him at a cer- 


UNTANGLING THE SKEIN 215 


tain coffee shop. I shadowed the place at 
night without finding him, but when I came 
back the next morning he was there having 
breakfast with Phil. Maybe yon think I was 
not puzzled. But there was nothing for me to 
do. Phil had the whole story as he has told 
you.” 

‘ 6 Good work but — ” said Bowers with a pro- 
longed pause after the “but” that left the two 
experienced members of his staff no doubt but 
that he was going to qualify his applause with 
some biting criticism, “but I don’t see that 
you’ve got anywhere. You found the kid- 
napers. Where are they? Locked up? You 
found Jimmie. And where is he?’ 

“Oh, I’m right here, Mr. Bowers,” broke in 
a voice at this juncture. All turned in excite- 
ment. Jimmie Holbrook was standing just 
outside the group. And with him was the Ital- 
ian whom “Smiling Pete” had called Sandro. 

Perkins looked from the newcomers to Bow- 
ers rather quizzically. “You seem to have 
your city staff back again, ’ ’ said he. ‘ ‘ Perhaps 
you’d better put a ball and chain on some of 
them now. Is the melodrama played out, 
Mr. Holbrook? Perhaps you’ll give us the last 
act now.” 

“Yes,” responded Holbrook. “I suppose 
that Yates and Phil there have given you the 


216 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

earlier part of the plot, so I ? 11 concentrate on 
the denoument.” 

Turning to Yates he said, 

“You know a plain clothes man named Joe 
Mora, don't you Bob?” 

“Sure, he helped me in this case.” 

“Helped you, did he? Well how much did 
you tell him about the case?” 

“Not a word. I only asked him if he knew 
Pete Benda, and he put me on to the fact that 
Benda and Bertelli were the same.” 

“He didn't know that you suspected Pete 
of being the mover in the abduction of Sal- 
vatore ? ' ' 

“Not unless he suspected it from my 
questions.” 

‘ ‘ All right. Now Phil, what became of Pete ? ' ' 

“He quit us when Yates and I returned to 
the room and found you gone. Yates wanted 
to hold him, but I said that I was sure you 
could find him when we wanted him.” 

“Quite so. Was Joe Mora's name men- 
tioned by him? Did he make any threat of 
appealing to him?” 

“No, but hold on. Mora's name was men- 
tioned, but not by Pete. It was Yates who 
brought it in telling Pete that we could get 
Mora to look him up if he tried to escape.” 

“Yes, and what did Pete say to that?” 


UNTANGLING THE SKEIN 217 

‘ ‘ Why I remember now he laughed in a queer 
way and rather defied us to get Joe Mora to do 
anything at all in this case.” 

“I thought so,” said Holbrook with satis- 
faction. Then turning to Mr. Perkins he went 
on. 

“ Chief, this has turned out to be something 
more than one of the common cases of at- 
tempted blackmail by a lot of Italian crooks. 
You know that story is one that crops up every 
few months in New York. And while I might 
be glad to figure as a hero in a big story the 
mere fact that the conspirators tried to head off 
detection by abducting a reporter isn’t the big 
thing. Under some conditions that might make 
a story worth while. But this one is bigger 
than that. For this thing reaches right into 
the police department. It fits in with our fight 
against the crime wave and police inefficiency. 
For I’ve got absolute proof that Pete Benda 
was only an unwilling tool in this matter ; that 
he was trying to live straight and clear his old 
record, and that he was forced by police per- 
secution into the commission of this new crime. 
And further I can prove that the official who 
dragged him back into his old evil ways was the 
man to whom Bob Yates was referred for infor- 
mation as to all that was going on in Little 
Italy — the plain clothes man Joe Mora.” 


218 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

“That’s the stuff,” exclaimed Bowers in 
enthusiasm. “Chief, you were saying you’d 
like a good local story for the first page. Here 
it is. A full four column spread and with 
plenty of pictures. I told you that Jimmie 
would come out of this with a story that would 
make the other fellows sit up and take notice. 
How did you get the goods, Jim!” 

“Phil probably told you that I sent him 
with Salvatore and Pete out after coffee when 
Pete had agreed to let the banker go. I was 
alone with Sandro, who showed very quickly 
that he had little desire to go further with the 
affair. As soon as I said a few words to him 
about quitting his pal and getting away he 
grabbed his hat and disappeared with so much 
alacrity that my suspicions were aroused. So, 
being free, I grabbed mine too and followed 
him. He never looked around once and I was 
able to follow him undetected to a sort of res- 
taurant they call a spaghetti house, a great 
resort for the Italians of that quarter. I see 
you know about it, Yates. He went in and I 
stopped for a time in a doorway nearby hoping 
he might come out shortly. I knew I could 
not go in after him as he would certainly 
have seen me. As luck would have it, he came 
out in a moment or two, and with him a burly 
man whom I recognized at once as Joe Mora — 


UNTANGLING THE SKEIN 219 


the “fly cop” as they call it of the Italian 
quarter. They stood for a moment not ten feet 
from where I was hidden, and I could make out 
that Mora was berating him violently in Italian 
for something he had done, I could see that 
Sandro was trying to explain, and that from 
being suppliant and servile he gradually become 
as angry as the other. Of course I could only 
guess at what was being said, but after a heated 
exchange Mora pulled out a bunch of bills and 
fairly threw one or two at the other. Then he 
walked away. Sandro stood for a moment red 
with anger, and shaking his fists at the retreat- 
ing figure. Then, with a shrug of his shoulders, 
as if determined to make the best of it, he 
stuffed the money in his pocket and turned to 
go. Then I determined to take a chance. 
Stepping out in front of him I pulled open my 
coat, showed my fire badge which I was sure he 
would take for an officer’s star, and said, 

“You made him come across, did you Sandro? 
Now you’ve got to come with me to the big 
chief. ’ ’ 

“He was scared stiff. At first he made as 
if to take to his heels, but I hung onto him as 
if I had him under arrest. Then he began to 
beg, and said the whole thing was none of his 
doings. I had begun to suspect something of 
the sort already. So I told him that if there 


220 PHILIP DEBBY, BEPOBTEB 

was anything he could say to get him out of the 
scrape he’d better tell me, and that unless he 
could put up some sort of a defense he was in 
a bad way. I told him that I felt friendly to 
him because he had not abused me while I was 
a prisoner, and that I felt sure he was acting 
only under compulsion of Benda. At that he 
made a sort of muttered protest from which I 
gathered that there was some man higher up 
than Pietro. This of course interested me and 
I led him on to tell his story. 

“It appeared that he had been an old friend 
of Pietro Benda, and when the prison doors 
opened to let that worthy out Sandro met him 
and took him home. His own record had 
always been clean. He had been a hard work- 
ing laborer doing whatever might come his way 
and saving up a little money as these Italians 
will. His friendship for Pietro was like that 
of a dog for his master, and his one idea was to 
keep him from further trouble with the law, 
and get him started in some reputable business. 
While the other had been in the pen the auto- 
mobile business had attained its present state 
of importance, and Sandro, working around 
garages, had picked up some knowledge of that 
business. He accordingly suggested 'to Benda 
that they buy a garage with his savings. 

“Pietro at first refused. I rather think he 


UNTANGLING THE SKEIN 221 


thought he could get along without much work, 
but pretty soon he began to have trouble with 
people who knew of his criminal record. This 
fellow Mora continually hounded him, going to 
his employers and warning them that they were 
giving work to a former convict, holding him 
up on the street in a way that made people sus- 
pect that he was in disfavor with the law, and 
in general making it hard for him to earn an 
honest living or to associate with honest men. 
When Pietro protested Mora hinted that he 
would let him alone if he would undertake some 
enterprises which the detective said would put 
money in both their pockets. The Italian did 
not know enough to make complaint at Police 
Headquarters. To make a long story short 
the whole scheme of blackmailing Salvatore was 
planned by Mora and Benda was forced to 
carry it out under threat of being arrested and 
rearrested on all sorts of flimsy pretexts. 
Mora prepared the warning letters that gave 
the banker so much apprehension and his 
family so much agony. Mora devised the 
scheme by which he was lured into a place 
where Pietro and his confederate could seize 
him and keep him for ransom. Sandro was 
kept in the work by his affection for Pietro 
and his determination to see him through. 
He told me that many times he had it in 


222 PHILIP DERBY, EEPORTER 

mind to end it all by putting a stiletto into 
the detective, and on my word I think if he could 
have caught him about the time I was talking 
to him he ’d have done it then. But I persuaded 
him that his best course was to come down here 
with me, and tell the story to you gentlemen 
and let us determine what course shall be taken 
to bring the detective to justice without bring- 
ing any more trouble upon his two unfortunate 
victims. ’ ’ 

“A good job from start to finish,’ ’ said 
Perkins approvingly. “I don’t suppose your 
other Italian friend standing back there under- 
stands enough English to keep up with our con- 
versation?” 

‘ ‘ Oh, no. He can keep up with you if you go 
slowly but he isn’t up to rapid fire conversation. 
But of course he knows in a general way what 
I have been telling you. I told him that we 
would look out for him, and protect both him 
and Benda if they would stand by the story he 
told after we printed it — for I suppose you are 
going to print it?” 

i 6 Print it! I should say we are. Now 
chief,” continued Bowers turning to the man- 
aging editor, “this is my notion of how this 
story should be handled in the morning. We’ll 
start off with the flat charge that the police de- 
partment is honeycombed with crooks, and that 


UNTANGLING THE SKEIN 223 


some of its most trusted officers have been plan- 
ning and conniving at crime. Then we will go 
ahead with the story of the conspiracy against 
iSalvatore, tell of the long continued campaign 
of threatening letters culminating in his abduc- 
tion. We will follow this with the story of Hol- 
brook’s experience when he sought to ferret out 
the criminals and then the steps by which young 
Derby here found the place of his confinement. 
And we will wind up with the proper descrip- 
tion of the way in which the hanker was re- 
turned to his family, and a confession extorted 
from one of the criminals implicating Joe Mora, 
the police plain clothes man. Of course we 
must get a statement to-night from Mora and 
from the Police Commissioner if he will talk. 
If I might make a suggestion I should think the 
topic a good one for an editorial on the deplor- 
able state of the police department.” 

“That is all right, Mr. Bowers, hut I suppose 
you know that for the present at least the force 
of your story depends entirely upon that Italian 
out there. You will no doubt get Benda in 
time and make him talk, but meanwhile don’t 
let this fellow get away, or be where the police 
can intimidate him.” 

“I guess I’ll just put him in charge of the 
men who found him,” responded Bowers with 
a grin. “You Jimmie and Yates and Derby will 


224 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

be responsible for your wop. Keep him to 
sleep with you, and don’t let him out of your 
sight. And you three must get up the story. 
Holbrook, you’d better take charge of it.” 

“I think Phil ought to do the greater part of 
it, Mr. Bowers,” said Jim earnestly. “He did 
all the real detective work.” 

“I just said that you were to handle the 
story,” said Bowers. “That doesn’t mean 
that you are to write it all. You can make Phil 
write all of it you want, and if I know you lazy 
young reporters as I think I do you will make 
him do most of the work. But just remember 
that this is a big story and has to be handled 
in a big way. I want you to send it to the copy 
desk practically ready for the composing room. 
That’s what we keep stars like you for, Jim- 
mie. So no soldiering now. And rush it ! 
Rush it!” 

The three young men left the conference, 
and went back to a group of desks provided 
with typewriters where they began in the 
phrase of the newspaper shop to “Block out 
the story.” 

“I’ll write the lead,” said Holbrook, “and 
then we will divide up the story among us. 
Just wait a minute will you, while I pound out 
the first paragraphs”: 

He sat hunched up for a few minutes before 


UNTANGLING THE SKEIN 225 


his typewriter in an attitude of intense thought, 
then suddenly fell upon the unfortunate in- 
strument with both hands, battering away at 
it with the clamor of a machine gun. In a brief 
time he calmed down and dragged from the 
battered machine a sheet bearing the following 
story : 

‘ ‘ Antony Salvatore, an Italian doing a bank- 
ing business at 247 East 163rd. Street was 
found yesterday by reporters for The Blade 
imprisoned in a third story tenement room on 
Mulberry Street by agents of the Black Hand. 
Salvatore had disappeared three days ago. 
At first it was thought that he had absconded 
with funds of the bank, but examination of his 
books showed all in order. His wife, who 
seemed terrorized, admitted under close ques- 
tioning that he had been getting menacing 
letters and that she feared he had been ab- 
ducted for purposes of extortion. A Blade re- 
porter working on the story was abducted by 
the same criminals and held until other re- 
porters of this newspaper, working without 
aid from the police, tracked them down and 
released the prisoners. The facts discovered 
by these reporters leave no possible doubt that 
certain members of the police force are in 
league with this particular band of criminals 
at least.” 


226 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

“ There Phil,” said Jim pitching the copy 
over to Derby. “That’s the essence of the 
story in the first paragraph. Now I want you 
to take up the story at the very beginning. Use 
as much of that old copy of mine as you can. 
Tell how Salvatore began getting the menac- 
ing letters weeks ago; speak of his depression 
and the anxiety of his wife ; go on with the de- 
tails of his disappearance and lay stress upon 
the excellent way in which his bank had been 
managed so that it stood the run. Then tell 
of my abduction and the manner in which you 
found both me and the banker. No names of 
course. Just a reporter for The Blade. We 
don’t get any personal advertising in this busi- 
ness. You carry the story right up to the 
point at which we permitted Pete to go. 

“Then, Bob, you’d better tell of the discovery 
of Benda’s picture in the rogues’ gallery and 
of your meeting with Joe Mora. Give his talk 
about Benda as much space as possible so as to 
show how thoroughly he knew this type of man 
and his record. You’d better write the first 
part of your story right away, and then go out 
and find Mora, tell him what we’ve got and give 
him an opportunity to clear himself. He’ll 
probably be ugly but you will know how to 
handle him. It’s about dinner time now and 
you’ll probably find him at that spaghetti 


UNTANGLING THE SKEIN 227 

house. Keep your story well inside a column. 

“A column and a half for you, Phil. And 
by the way, send down to the restaurant and 
have something- to eat sent up for our friend 
Sandro. Don’t let him out of your sight. 
We’ll just keep him here until the paper is off 
the press, and then I think I’ll take him up to 
my hotel and get a room for him. He ’s got to 
live with us until we get this thing before the 
grand jury. 

“Now I’m off to see the Police C/ommis- 
sioner and ask him what he thinks of one of his 
pets working in with the Black Hand and even 
being the organizer of one of their plots. 
Maybe the old bird won’t squawk! He’s been 
inclined to sneer at the fight The Blade has 
been making on corruption in the Department, 
but I guess he will take this .thing seriously 
enough. So long, boys. Send your copy 
straight to the desk and tell them to save proofs 
for me. I’ll be back about nine, and will stop 
on the way out and tell the art department what 
pictures we want. So long. In the words of 
the eminent Bowers — Bush it! Bush it!” 

Long before Phil had finished thinking, and 
writing a few words, scratching out, pondering 
again, and once more addressing himself hesi- 
tatingly to the machine in his painful attempt 
to compose his first story Yates had finished 


228 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

his stunt and was off for the job of telling 
Mora that he had been detected in his crooked 
work. There were groans and sighs from the 
spot where Phil sat toiling, and the Italian 
who sat nearby, cheered with a bunch of comic 
supplements to look at, may have thought that 
the youth who was trying to tell the story of 
the crime was suffering more than he who was 
implicated in it. 

In due time Holbrook came back, dropped 
into a chair and wrote silently and steadily for 
an hour, calling from time to time for a copy 
boy to take his copy to the desk. Phil who had 
not quite finished his own job, sat thinking how 
fine it was to be himself writing instead of 
running at the shrill call of “copy.” 

“Gee, but I won't say it's a cinch yet,” he 
reflected. “This writing isn't as easy as Jim 
makes it look, or nearly as easy as reading the 
stuff in the paper.” 

Phil was just beginning to appreciate the 
force of the writer's maxim — “Easy writing 
makes hard reading.” 

The night wore on. Yates came back with 
his story. Mora had broken down, confessed 
everything and said he would resign from the 
force the next day. The proofs of the early 
copy began coming in, and Phil looked fur- 


UNTANGLING THE SKEIN 229 


tively over Jim’s shoulder as the latter cut and 
slashed away at them. 

“I wish he’d tell me why he is cutting that 
stuff,” thought Phil, as he saw large wads of 
his most cherished rhetoric scornfully thrown 
out. Or I wish I could even get a look at the 
proofs, and see exactly what it is that he objects 
to.” 

But reasonable as the wishes were they went 
ungranted. The capable and veteran news- 
paper editor cannot always, even if he has 
time, explain the motives which lead him to cut 
this or that. Brevity is always a reason, but 
there are others which seem to be instinctive 
with the trained editorial mind, and which only 
experience enables one to understand. Phil 
stood now only at the threshold of that 
experience. 

“Well, the job’s done,” said Jim with a 
sigh of content as he called a boy to take the 
last proof. “Phil, you wrote a good story, for 
a youngster. Perhaps in fifteen or twenty 
years you may make a good reporter. There. 
Don’t get peeved. You really have done a 
good job, and there isn’t the slightest doubt 
in my mind that Bowers will put you on the 
staff regularly to-morrow. I’m so sure of it 
that I’ll buy the supper to night at the Pewter 


230 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 

Grill on our way up town. We’ll wait for the 
first editions, and go np there taking Bob 
along. You’ll find a bunch from the other 
papers there. What do you say?” 

Say? Phil couldn’t say it. To sup at the 
Pewter Grill in the hours when the gray was 
just beginning to break over the roofs of the 
city to the eastward, to see the crowds of night 
workers of every class coming in for their late 
suppers, to mix in the Olympian society of the 
stars on the local forces of The Blade’s rivals! 
That was “Paradise enow” as old Omar would 
have said. 

And when an hour later, he started with the 
two reporters out of the almost deserted city 
room his cup seemed running over for in his 
hand he carried a first edition on the first page 
of which appeared HIS STORY under these 
impressive headlines: 

DETECTIVE INVOLVED 

IN BLAOKHAND PLOT 

Trusted Plainclothes Man Compels Ex- 
convict to Return to the Practice 
of Crime 


ITALIAN BANKER ABDUCTED IN EXTORTION 
PLOT 


UNTANGLING THE SKEIN 231 


Reporter Working on the Case Held Pris- 
oner by the Black Hand Until 
Rescued by Associate 

Police Commissioner Aghast — Detective 
Joe Mora Tries in Vain to Explain 
Complicity in the Plot and Will 
Quit Force. 


And yet glorious as the windup of the night 
seemed it gave to Phil no such thrill as came to 
him at noon the next day when, after a sound 
morning r s sleep and breakfast at twelve, he 
hastened to the office and looked timidly at the 
assignment book. There, amid all the names 
of journalistic luminaries and memoranda of 
the fields in which they were to revolve that 
day, he saw this long-awaited note : 

Derby — Follow up Salvatore case. See Mr. 
Bowers. 

And on the Bulletin board, whereon the high 
displeasure and lofty approbation of the edi- 
tors were occasionally set forth, he read this 
placard. 


232 PHILIP DERBY, REPORTER 


In pursuance of its policy The Blade 
compliments Mr. Philip Derby upon the 
excellent reportorial work done by him at 
his own initiative and without direction in 
running down the abductors of his col- 
league James Holbrook. The city editor 
wishes to direct the attention of reporters 
to this achievement, and expressly to call 
to their attention the fact that it was a 
piece of original and voluntary service. 
Mr. Derby is added to the regular repor- 
torial staff to-day. 

Signed : 

William P. Bowers, 
City Editor. 


THE END 




% 




t 






















* 




















I 




\ 












i 







k 


/ 




